Accents
50 years and counting
Off-hand, may I say that I’m going to do a lot of heavy bench-lifting, so if the weight tires you, turn to the next page or to the next columnist pronto. This is going to be a bio, one couple’s life history spanning the length of 50 years—the magical number famously called golden. Year 2010 is the Golden Wedding anniversary of Rodolfo Lagoc and Julia Carreon (full names were on the program), the date: January 30.
Exactly, 50 years ago, yours truly and Rudy wed at the San Marcelino Church in Paco, Manila. He was 24. I was 23. We renewed marriage vows in a Mass at the Our Lady of Mercy Church in Redding, California. Fr. Jonathan Molina, the Filipino parish priest, had everything down pat: the First Reading and Second Reading which daughters Rose and Raileen read, respectively, and the Prayer for the Faithful—all in the program nicely prepared by Rose, the computer whiz.
Fit choice for the Second Reading was the oft-quoted first Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians. Love deep-felt, never for show in these lines: “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal./And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; If I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” Further, this reminder to come back to especially when you are at your lowest ebb or at boiling point: “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth./It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things./Love never fails.” Lovely words, observed in entirety, would make the years truly golden, not just a number count, after which one is worthy to be nominated to sainthood.
After the Mass, the salo-salo followed at Raileen’s place. The popular lechon dominated the array of Filipino cuisine so dear to the Pinoy taste buds. Since the anniversary date fell on a Saturday, many friends came to celebrate with us. And now, readers, bear with me like the guests did in the purely personal after-dinner program.
Rose had placed two photos on the program—one taken 50 years ago and the other taken last year when yours truly turned 73 in November and Rudy turned 74 in December. In the first photo, Rudy looked very much like the young intellectual that he was while I looked awful. The bridal dress didn’t help any that I was constrained to explain my appearance: I was five months pregnant when the photo was taken. Yes, five months pregnant in the church wedding. Five months earlier, Rudy and I had the civil marriage which for all intents and purposes was enough for Rudy and me. Civil? That would not suffice especially to Fr. Jonathan who was seated with us at the presidential table. Nor to my mother Cristeta who was then recovering from breast cancer operation. When she came to Manila for a medical check-up in the company of my father Simplicio, the deed was sealed: her daughter was blessed with a church wedding. (For a bit of black colour in the tapestry of our life: my mother died four months later in the same hospital where Rose was born three days earlier.)
What has 50 years of marriage produced? Now, skip this if you will. Rudy and I talked of the fruits of our labor: 4 children. Rose was an MBM scholar at the renown Asian Institute of Management, married to Timothy Yee, a Chinese American cum laude of UC Berkeley. Both founded their very own business, Green Retirement Plans. Timothy and Rose have given us grandkid James Raphael who had been to the Boy Scouts World Jamboree in London, getting steeped in the Boy Scout motto of “One World, One Promise” that seeks to unite all of humanity. Our son Roderick, chess champ of our town Oton, holds an LlB and whisked through college as a varsity chess player in the University of San Agustin, winning for USAg second place nationwide. A staff of DOLE-Region VI, he is married to Ruby (nee Pequierda), the Assistant District Engineer of Iloilo City’s Engineering District Office. Ruby and Roderick have given us two grandkids: Jetrone, Phil. Sci scholar, already a med tech on his way to med proper. Their daughter Raisa June is graduating as a nurse. Next to Roderick is Randy, an internist, having to her credit Best Intern and Best Resident of the New York Medical Center at Queens, and Physician of the Year of the Hilton Head Regional Medical Center in 2007. She is married to David Dingus, a CPA, a magna cum laude graduate of the West Virginia State University. David and Randy have given us granddaughter Danika, a model third grader Montessori pupil. Raileen who graduated cum laude from UPV is a practicing pediatrician here in Redding after her internship in the Harlem Hospital in New York. She is married to Nixon Barnuevo who is into info tech and is her clinic’s office manager. Gush, that was kilometric. I said skip, remember.
Somebody in the audience said, “You missed telling us about yourselves.” Oh, yeah. Rudy and I got overwhelmed narrating the fruits of 50 years of hard labor, characterized in one word, kayud—working our butts off sending ‘em kids through college—he as Executive Labor Arbiter of the National Labor Relations Commission – Region VI and I as newsletter Editor of SEAFDEC (Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center.) And the pay-off: a trip to Hong Kong and Singapore, a 31-day tour of Europe, 3 cruises to the Bahamas, and another cruise to see the glaciers in Alaska and the Buchart Gardens in Canada.
Was ours a smooth highway? What couple would say theirs has no potholes along the pathway? Gush, let’s get real. It was “spat after spat” and “make up after make up,” strengthened only by a common ground: our being activists, possessed with overriding concern for our people—the poor, the oppressed, the exploited, the downtrodden. Tone that down to our being liberal and progressive. We are retirees, still doing our bit toward promoting social justice in our country—he as one of the lawyers of ILAC (Iloilo Legal Assistance Center) and I in my column-writing. Pursuit for social justice was the very ideal that strengthened our relationship over and above the slings and arrows that plague a marriage. (Outrageous misfortune we were able to surmount early in our life together was his being detained in the Marcos stockade for 6 months, followed by 2 months of provincial arrest — the dictator’s “compensation” for Rudy as legal counsel to student activists and for being outspoken in both radio and print. It was 1972, and Raileen, our youngest, was in Grade I then. We had to scrounge for the plane fare of his PC escort when Rudy went to visit his ailing mother in Manila. She waited for his only son and died on his arms.)
50 years? How the congratulations poured and the wishes that went with them especially wishes for more years of being together. It is often said that it’s not the number of years that count, but the quality of every year, of every day that we live our lives. Some days must be dark and dreary, the poet said. Indeed, but sunshine stream forth through the dark clouds and everything gets right in the world again.
50 years and counting? Shall we start looking forward to the 75th anniversary, i.e., the diamond wedding anniversary? By that time, year 2035, Rudy would be 99 and I would be 98. God Almighty, I’ll just request St. Peter to officiate the renewal of our marriage vows.
(Email: lagoc@hargray.com)
