Remembering Romance

Picture in your mind flickering  black and white images from a  newsreel running on a screen, the time is 1951, and a group of Filipino students from the Assumption Convent are on a cross-country tour of Europe. Picture then one skinny, gangling twenty-something man who is the sole still-single male member of this touring group, otherwise comprised of young girls and Assumption nuns. Why this “odd man out” member in the group? What would be his purpose in being with the group, and who is he pursuing? The answer to these questions is the by-now more than 60-year-old love story that ends up with me, my brother and sisters, coming into this world.

No prize for guessing, but yes, that man is my late father, Ricky. He passed away late September of this year, and he would have been 84 on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Back then in 1951, one could very well raise both eyebrows to one’s hairline as to why my dad would be part of this all-female group, and we can thank the long hand of nepotism for that. The sister of my Cu-Unjieng Lolo is Assumption’s late Mother Esperanza, and I would venture to guess that if Mother Esperanza would declare her nephew persona grata to join the group, no one would dare raise that proverbial eyebrow! More to the point is why my father would want to be with this touring party. And there, the answer lies in my mom, Helen (who passed away in 1996), being in that tour group. On board officially as group photographer, and assisting the only other male of the party, the group physician, Dr. Rivera, my dad got to know my mom better on this European odyssey, and was smitten!

The courtship began in earnest upon their return to Manila; and when things were getting too serious, my mom was whisked away to another European trip in the summer of ‘52, but this time with her parents (my Lola Corazon and Lolo Tony Torres). Of course, my dad followed them to Europe — she was his Helen who launched a thousand planes — and after much begging and groveling, and initially against the wishes of my mom’s mother, my dad got his much sought after bride-to-be’s parental consent, and then arranged things with a Tita who lived in Madrid, so that a church wedding transpired in that glorious city — Aug. 6, 1952. My mother was 18, and my dad was 23.

In a wedding gown from the House of Worth (which in turn would be handed down to both my sisters who both transformed it to something more contemporary), there was the added convenience of my mother’s parents already with her in Europe to give her away. An elderly woman, my Lola Azon was of that generation when the unspoken rule was that children took care of their parents as they reached a certain age. So for her, my father was the usurper, upsetting what had been preordained. So much so that upon their return to Manila, my dad was in for a shock, as my Lola Azon declared that she may have granted him permission to take my mother’s hand in marriage, but that didn’t mean he could take her home with him — that was not part of the “usapan.” With begging and groveling now second nature to him, my dad beseeched my Lolo Tony for enlightenment. That came in the form of my parents living in the Torres house in Paco, a house I remember vividly. My Lolo Tony passed away in 1955, and as for my Lola Azon, until her dying day, my mom would take care of her, and she was with us, even in senility, when we moved to Makati in the late ‘60s. For my mom, her duty to her mother would easily co-exist with her wifely, and Mommy, duties.

As we go through my father’s belongings, papers and kept letters that stretch back through the decades, prominent among them are notes that date back to that period of courtship and when newly married. My sisters and I were laughing about a letter from a then 18-year-old newly married “tomboy” writing to her new parents-in-law, and I paraphrase, “Dear Mama Mary and Papa Mariano, I guess I can call you that and there’s nothing you can do about it; and I guess I have to obey you now, and there’s nothing I can do about that!”

We’ll all have our own set of family stories and “folklore.” I have to admit that at a younger age, full of bravado and the brashness of youth, I didn’t care much for these stories and anecdotes, leaving it to my sisters to listen as my mom would spin her tales. But now, with my parents both gone, I wish I had a firmer grasp of these stories; that I could relay them to my sons, giving them a better sense of family and belonging — where they came from! For when it comes to love, to relationships, these stories will be of more immediacy to them; as they form the fountainhead, the spring waters, from which flows their own existence.