(Dedicated to Dr Joel Carpio Mendoza, a Nuclear Medicine physician who graduated from SLMC Residency Training Program in 2013, who died in Laguna also on April 4, 2020.)

They say that “lightning does not strike twice”
Oh yeah? Well, we have proof: that is all lies!
No sooner than the ink from the pen for one poem dries
Here comes news from Laguna that Colleague #2 dies.

Ano ba yan! Kahapon lang hindi pa tapos magdalamhati
Itong aming maliit na Nuclear Medicine community;
Eto na naman ang balitang nagdudulot nang pighati
Wala na bang katapusan itong si Kamatayan ay naghahari?

Oh Joel! Oh Joel! You are young, low-key but very promising,
Scholarly, academician with a great future so scintillating;
Would have been a good material ready for exporting
Life & career suddenly cut short: oh is it not so devastating!

Why must it be so, about the saying that “the good die young”?
For whatever reason: their lives so…sayang na sayang!
Masakit mamatayan ng anak para sa mga magulang
Humahagulgol kahit buo ang loob, kahit anong tapang!

For some: Life is so short, so fragile, so unpredictable
Alive & full of energy today, fate so ineluctable;
Our prayer to the Lord Almighty, full of mercy and so venerable
That Doc Joel in your bosom to keep is entirely justifiable.

– Dr. Teofilo San Luis, Jr.