Halo-Halo On My Mind

Milky Way’s Special Halo-Halo

Take a tall glass of the famed Filipino shaved ice dessert called halo-halo. It's built up on layer upon layer of sweetened fruits, beans, and jellies, crushed ice, and topped by a scoop or two of creamy ube ice cream. Inside the glass, it sits as a jumble of goodness ready to be incorporated into a delicious slush.

How to do it without spilling a big chunk of it out of the glass and making a messy puddle on the table is a lesson in Physics shared with us by a klasmeyt who ended up President and CEO of a petrochemical company.

Stick the long-handled spoon deep down into the floor of the glass. Make a little stirring motion over and over. Soon enough the whole pile crumbles from the bottom, liquefying the column of shaved ice, ice cream, cream or milk, and sweetened ingredients. Soon, you are ready to rumble with the best food mixture ever concocted by man.

Halo-halo is my metaphor for friendship with my high school buddies. It is the sweetest and coolest of all the relationships of my entire life. Last night, I said a proper farewell to two of them at Milky Way, a favorite hangout to indulge in halo-halo.

Like the dessert itself, our friendship was never meant to be admired from afar like a perfect tower in a glass. It had to be stirred, mixed, and sometimes shaken by the years—marriages, careers, triumphs, disappointments, and the long distances life imposed on us. Yet once blended again, the sweetness returns as if no time had passed at all.

And just like halo-halo, every reunion reminds me that what makes it wonderful is not any single ingredient, but the joyful mix of all of us together.