25 years

I would like to ask for the indulgence of the reader if I have to digress from the usual fare of this column today. I am observing something very special and deeply personal today, one that does not happen everyday. So I need to put it down here for posterity.

Twenty-five years ago today, at an hour before noon in the beautiful Santo Niño Church in Tacloban City, I stood before Msgr. Filomeno Bactol, at the time the auxiliary bishop of the Palo Archdiocese, about to make a decision that was to change my life forever.

Beside me was a young woman fresh out of college, of the pioneering Masscom batch of the now defunct Divine Word University, whose most illustrious classmate, I guess, would have to be Ted Failon of ABS-CBN.

I was to be married to that young woman, who was younger than me by a full 11 years. This age difference was to prove quite propitious and providential in more ways than one, as anyone who marries a very young woman is bound to find out many times later on.

Anyway, there I was, with nothing to my name except the will to settle down. A lot of what went into my wedding came from the kindness of a few friends, some of whom are still around to continually bless me with their friendship.

On a few occasions since then, when I had the opportunity to get a little personal in this space, I would joke that I never really found out whether I got married because I fell in love with a girl from Leyte or if I fell in love with Leyte itself.

For someone from a big city, Leyte, and in particular the town of Carigara, offered me many things and experiences so beautiful and meaningful that I cannot help but treasure for the rest of my life.

But on this day I will have to admit that all of those things and experiences would not have been so beautiful and meaningful had I just been passing through as a traveler and not been inextricable woven into its fabric by way of love and marriage.

Thus, the tapestry of my life over the past 25 years of marriage had been one splashed dominantly with the vibrant colors of life. And while there are the usual darker colors of pain and sadness, they are there mostly to provide balance and contrast.

In the course of those 25 years, my marriage has been blessed with three beautiful daughters — Carmel Jamaica and Lia Lourdes (both licensed nurses who remain jobless, ha ha), and Nina Fatima, at 10 separated by 12 years from her immediately elder sibling.

 A fourth daughter, actually my second, Eisila Flora, died in infancy. Her death was one of the most painful experiences in my life but it also provided the strongest glue that held the family together, the determination to sail on and leave no one behind.

 It is quite a challenge, though, for the only man in the house to be a Cebuano and to be surrounded completely by a host of Waray and half-Waray women. There is never a dull moment, so to speak.

My family loves to jokingly describe itself as dysfunctional, whatever that really means. The joke aside, I do not really see it that way. Because in the end we somehow always manage to pull together. For 25 years we have and I do not see any dysfunction in that.

So, as I look beyond 25, to perhaps another 25, God willing, I can only thank my family for keeping the faith, and to those around us for the understanding and support. And to Arlinda Calandria Tundag, the corner post without whom everything would collapse, my love.