A belated Valentine love story
This love story was meant to be published the Monday after Valentine’s Day, but my workload piled up and I was not able to meet the deadline. I usually write on Internet law, but on occasions like Valentine’s, Christmas and New Year, I deviate from my usual topic.
This is a love story that has to be written. It is within this context that I write it — it touched the heartstrings of everyone that was part of the spiritual process where His Creator claimed back Jose de Santos Orosa for his congregation in heaven on Jan. 26, barely three weeks ago.
My family has known the Sixto Orosa Jr. family from the time I was a young kid playing badminton with the Orosa brothers, together with my sisters. Joe Orosa’s father was nicknamed “Ting” and was bank president in his time. I’d see him and his wife, Tita Edita, at my late parents’ parties after we, the kids, lost touch with one another, as we pursued further studies abroad and thereafter forged lives of our own.
It was only when I met Marily Ysip-Orosa at a number of common political endeavors that I met Joe again after so many years. Immediately, upon seeing the two together, what struck me about this married couple — a second marriage for both of them since both were widowed — was the remarkable intellectual synergy and rapport that existed between the two. It was not only remarkable but also absolutely impressive.
Being a widow myself, what I kept going over and over in my mind was the fact that these two high-powered individuals found each other and fell in love — in fact, fell in love so mightily to bravely marry each other the second time around. I am convinced now, however, that when the Lord has a hand in it, love flows, as Joe said at one time, “effortlessly.”
Certainly I agree with those who believe in love. In fact, I believe not only that love makes the world go round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile. Let me go one step further for I subscribe to the theory that the only abnormality in life is the incapacity to love.
In the case of Joe and Marily Orosa, Kahlil Gibran’s words are so applicable: “To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.” There was indeed a love so great that even in the darkest moments during Joe’s journey back to His Creator, Marily guided him not only with her heart but also with her mind constantly. If anyone has ever doubted that true love really exists, that someone will immediately be constrained to relinquish that feeling.
And there was likewise an admiration for each other, so outstanding, that friends like me could not help but appreciate.
I cannot just call Joe and Marily’s meeting each other as simply arranged by destiny, for it was God that made certain that the two would meet. About eight months into Joe’s widowhood, he hosted a lunch at the Manila Polo Club. On the agenda was an audiovisual presentation (AVP) to raise finances and gather support for a Christian school expansion and relocation.
Businesslike and brief though the AVP was, Joe was impressed by, in his own words, “the courage and strength of character of the presenter.” Marily had been widowed less than a month before and she was making this efficient and brisk presentation so well. Their pastor had asked Marily to take on the job of crafting and making the presentation needed by their Christian congregation. She was requested to work with one of the prominent members of their church, Joe Orosa, who had accepted the chairmanship of the project. In spite of Marily’s protestations because it was soon after she was widowed, she could not refuse the pastor. In an essay she wrote, she said she “acceded reluctantly, hoping obedience to a man of God would get me closer to heaven.” That, indeed, was the Lord working in His strange way.
The business meetings soon graduated into friendly dinner dates. Joe had written in an essay likewise that he had been invited to write on his widowhood and eventual meeting with Marily, that he “started to take notice of this woman of character, beauty, grace, wit and humor.” As Joe himself had said, through five years of courtship, God guided and strengthened us, “especially in the areas of patience, relationships, and dealing with our past.”
In spite of this fundamental identity as far as intellectual compatibility was concerned, Marily, however, says in the same book of essays, which was published in 2002, that she was “amazed at how wonderfully opposite we were. I was talkative and an extrovert; he a man of few words and an introvert. I was bubbly; he, serious. He loved Pavarotti; I, the Bee Gees! He enjoyed the sea; I, the mountains. I hated oysters; he could consume a plateful of them! He insisted on “fine dining”; I was constantly watching my newfound figure and was content with a salad. He was always punctual, and me, late. Rose Yenko, my psychologist friend, ventured to say that Joe kept my feet on the ground. I liberated him from his seriousness. Happily our love blossomed in this fertile soil of diversity” (excerpts taken from the book From This Day Forward).
From this fertile soil of diversity sprang a unity of purpose to serve God and to clasp each other’s hands in solidarity. And there was indeed that fundamental intellectual harmony that created the opportunity for love and admiration for each other to blossom and prosper in the manner it did.
They were intellectual equals. Marily had founded and was president of Studio 5 Designs, Inc., involved in various aspects of visual communications such as corporate literature, marketing and sales collaterals, special arts events, calendars, etc. She was head of a highly competitive group, responsible for the excellent quality of its products and services produced by the company for its clients. In this capacity, Marily was the main reason for bringing to the company multiple awards for works designed and developed for Studio 5’s clientele. She had majored in Communication Arts in college and came prepared, armed with her degree, to undertake such a business.
Marily Orosa is an entrepreneur par excellence and the complete businesswoman.
Joe Orosa graduated cum laude from the De La Salle University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Commerce with Accounting as his major, so it was but natural that Marily sought advice from him and made him chairman of the board of the firm that had now expanded into publishing. The union of two great minds produced what Studio 5 is today.
The couple worked together on a great number of publications. But more than anything, to my mind, the most remarkable achievement of Joe was his being project director of the Every Nation Leadership Institute, Inc., a leadership training and development institute located at the Universal Park of Fort Bonifacio Global City. He is committed to the vision of training a new generation of leaders in the Christian ministry, business, public governance, sports and media. It is one of the most beautiful edifices in the Global City.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that all of the above was brought about by that formidable combination of spiritual, intellectual, and business synergy that existed between Joe and Marily Orosa.
But I am getting ahead of my story. After all, this was intended to be a belated valentine love story.
On Dec. 21, 1993, six years after they were both widowed, and five years after they first met, Joe and Marily were wed in a wonderful garden ceremony at the then Westin Philippine Plaza. For a backdrop, the two professed their marriage vows against the golden sunset of Manila Bay.
After approximately 15 years of a marriage beyond compare, Joe Orosa passed away peacefully and beautifully with his loved ones around him. According to Marily, no matter how heartrending her grief is, she knows so well that Joe would want her to carry on bravely. Her reminiscences of her husband are touching. She was only 40 when she met Joe, who was eight years her senior. She remembers 15 qualifications for a future husband that she drew up after she was first widowed. She did not know Joe yet when she made the list. He found out about that list, asked for it from her, and kept it in his wallet for 20 years.
Joe gave her beautiful red roses several times a year with a handwritten note always. And especially on Valentine’s Day, the red roses would be there with the day ending in a romantic dinner for two.
After Joe was diagnosed with cancer and became seriously ill in spite of all the medical procedures and medications here and abroad, there were no roses for Marily. But this time, Marily surprised Joe with a beautiful note that said in simple words: “To my husband, my best friend, I love you every day, and Valentine’s Day gives me just another reason to tell you how much love you bring to my life. You are always there for me … you make me feel secure, cherished and loved. Your trust has helped me to reach beyond myself and to become all that I can be. You are my best friend and my favorite person to be with. You are a wonderful man and I am proud to be your wife. I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
On the first day after his passing, I paid tribute to Jose de Santos Orosa at the Santuario de San Antonio in Forbes, for leading such an exemplary life. Beneath his casket was a little round table with 15 lovely red roses (15 years of marriage) that said: “I love you, honey-pie.”
I know that even now, there is still that synergy that goes on between Joe and Marily Orosa. Death could not just break this up. I myself am an incurable romantic, for which reason this love story had to be written.
Sophocles so wisely said: “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love.”
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