I was born in 1973. My first memories are of the two people I loved most (and on whom my own identity was built) who are living together so much in-love with each other. I’ve never see them quarrel, I’ve never seen them attending community functions not with each other’s company. My father, a working student graduated college when I was already in grade 5, and my mother although she’s also working in a government agency keeps her pace with household chores.

I have a brother, a year younger of me, who became my best friend at all times. We belong together in the same school varsity, we had joined the school children’s choir, and because our house is only of walking distance, we walk down the road to save a penny. We don’t get enough allowance for a week, so we grew up understanding that life is not a fairy tale. Our first separation was when I entered college in an Ateneo school some miles away from home, although a year after he immediately followed. We still receive a very mean allowance that is why driving our family-owned public utility vehicle during weekends was an alternative for him. When we both finished college and started to earn our regular monthly pay, we did the finishing of our ancestral home.

Compassion

I was thirty years old when I got married to a man eight years younger than me. It took so much courage for me to marry him that I had a child from my first boyfriend I’ve meet in college.

The idea of getting married didn’t sink in into my system until one day I realized a man I used to work with in a private company befriend my daughter. When he finally proposed, the first person I confide with was my child.

            “Do you really like him?” asked my 7-year old daughter.

            “I hope he won’t make you cry.” She continued, her face glowing and eyes all straight to mine.

On one point, however, his family had told him, “Love the child as yours.”

Immediately after the wedding ceremony, the better my daughter feel, the more she felt the need for a man, a father in her life. The first time I heard her call her step dad as “Daddy.”

Love in marriage

Why I am sharing you this? For the reason that many now face big challenges combining relationships in marriage. I respect you with whatever relationship you have with your family now, but let me share with you the homily of the priest during a wedding ceremony I witnessed over the weekend.

             There is a moment in each of our lives when life gains a richer meaning because it is shared. United together with Christ in our midst, love in marriage is a wonderful thing.

Love in Marriage is an open channel; it is two-way process. (You fight as a couple over simple things? Sit down over a cup of coffee or walk together in a park and discuss the issue. A simple thing in conflict becomes a problem when not immediately settled down.)

Love in Marriage has no secrets. (Openness. In marriage, partners will discover a lot from attitudes and persona kept during courtship. The snore, the bad smelling socks, husband waking up seeing your wife without her make up, lying upon a smelly armpit? Oh no!)

Love in Marriage has a vision. (Have you planned and agreed upon how many kids you want to have? Where should you stay: with your parents or to build your own house? What insurance policy are you going to enroll? Where should you send your child to school?)

Love in Marriage always encounters God. (“A family that prays together, stay together.” Have time to go to church and pray together. Teach your children to pray. Bishop J. Manguiran said, “It is better for a mother to hold her child’s hand and show the way the sign of the cross, than a father teaching his child how to fire a gun.”)