The Vows

Not all marriages are made in heaven, but long and happy marriages are.

Such marriages aren’t just the fruition of two people’s faithfulness to their vows.

They are also a gift from Above, for part of the equation to this rarity of a long marriage is the factor of good health.

(Or is a good health also the result of a happy marriage? Happy marriages and relationships, perhaps, release mega doses of anti-oxidants and stress busters that save lives and relationships.)

Former Assemblyman and Justice Secretary Ricardo Puno and his wife Priscilla have been married for 67 years now, with 13 children, 63 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and thousands of happy memories that multiply everyday.

Their son, lawyer Rene Puno, credits his parents’ happy marriage to a third party.

God.

“God is the third party in their marriage,” stresses Rene, himself happily married to the former Ann Santa Cruz and a father of three. “Also, they are, and have always been, best friends, and they seek each other’s company constantly.”

Rene says his parents live by the dictates of the Bible that instructs “man to honor his wife, and for the woman to obey her husband.”

“He honors my mom by being faithful to her while she honors my dad by abiding by his decisions as head of the family,” adds Rene.

On their 59th wedding anniversary in 2004, PeopleAsia magazine sat down to interview the couple, nicknamed “Carding” and “Cheling.” They met in Baguio before the war, but were separated at its height. The lovestruck Carding couldn’t get his mind off Cheling, and so after liberation, he searched the ruins of war-torn Manila for her and found her in a classroom at the San Beda College, where other homeless Manileños had sought shelter. He swore never to let go of her again and they were wed on April 14, 1945.

When then PeopleAsia senior writer Jacs Sampayan asked them the secret of their six-decade-old union, Cheling said, “It just comes to a point when you cannot live without him.”

“It’s giving, giving, giving until there is nothing left to give,” Carding, for his part, shared.

Everything else  their number of years together on earth, the number of children they would have  they left to God.

Their son Rene is right.

There is a third party in the Puno union and He makes things right for them.

* * *

Another poster couple on the benefits of marriage were my late in-laws, Carlos Ramirez and the former Lutgarda Quintans. If marriage were a product, they would have been the perfect endorsers. They were married for almost 61 years and were blessed with five children  Peewee, Elvira, Ed (my husband), Edith and Beth, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren (another great-grandchild is coming).

They were the constant in each other’s life, they punctuated the other’s existence, they complemented each other, they brought out the best in each other, they were each other’s better half. I think they were each other’s oxygen  the quiet, unobtrusive presence they couldn’t live without.

Ed used to say that the secret of his Pappy and Mommy’s longevity (and the longevity of their marriage as well) was their sense of humor.

Pappy Carlos died in January 2010 of a sudden heart attack. He was a few months shy of his 86th birthday.

Mommy Garding, then 84, was saddened by the loss of her beloved husband, but she was not inconsolable. A deeply spiritual person with a hotline to God and Mama Mary, she knew her beloved Carlos was in a better place, and she was comforted that he died in a state of grace. I remember her looking lovingly at her husband in his coffin, tenderly touching its glass lid, which was caressed by her warm tears. She was never hysterical, even if for the first time in 60 years, she would have to face life without him.

Three months later, she went where her heart led her  to her beloved Carlos. Mommy Garding passed due to complications from cancer, which she didn’t know she had till its late stage.

She wasn’t eager to be hospitalized. She was always saying, “Maybe this is God’s will for me. I am old already.” Maybe, in her mind, she was thinking that her passing on to the next life was a beginning, not an end  the beginning of her reunion with her Carlos.

In fact, during her wake, her manicurista said my mother-in-law had made an appointment for home service about two weeks before she died. She had her dyed and had a pedicure. She reportedly told her manicurista, “Pagandahin mo ako dahil magkikita na kami ni Carlos. Susundan ko na siya.”

I once asked my in-laws the secret to their union.

“There is no secret!” Pappy answered immediately. “Marriage is about understanding each other. We are but human, we are not perfect, we each have our failings and idiosyncrasies.”

He believed that for a marriage to be perfect, husbands and wives should be tolerant of each other’s imperfections.

Mommy echoed Pappy’s advice. “There should be give and take in a marriage.”

Mommy believed that in order for a marriage to be successful, one should make sacrifices. I suppose that means that each partner must give up something displeasing to the other, or offer something to the other and to the children that is obtained with some hardship. In the end, sacrifices bear fruit.

* * *

My colleague Isabel de Leon, Lifestyle editor of the Bulletin, lost her parents shortly after they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in January last year. Her mother Flordeliza died in August 2011, and her father Jose died three months later, in November. Their devotion to each other reminded me of my own parents-in-law.

“They were like twins, when one got sick, the other turned hypochondriac; where one went, the other followed; when happy, it would be mirrored in the other’s face,” Isabel said of her beloved parents when her Tatay died. “When Nanay died almost three months ago, Tatay lost his will to live. They are now reunited in heaven, wearing clothes they wore to their wedding.”

Such is love. Though not all widows or widowers would like to immediately follow their beloved to their after-life honeymoon beyond the Pearly Gates, there is such a thing as everlasting love.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)