A Pearl Anniversary Celebration

Celebrating 30 years of shared lifetime

Almost 30 years ago, on December 23, 1978 to be exact, I took what I considered to be my second leap to a lifetime, my take two from God at happiness. I committed myself before God in marriage to Thelma whom I vowed to love and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death. The wedding was the start of a shared lifetime that persists strongly to this day, anchored on a deep love for God and for each other, and based on the belief that God destined us for one another.

I do not remember now how the whole thing began. I was 36 while Thelma was 27. I had a stable job at The Medical City as Human Resources Manager while Thelma was already at De La Salle as College Instructor. But I do not remember how I proposed to Thelma.

A neophyte in the ways of the world then, perhaps I did not know any better. There were no flowers, no diamond ring and there was no prepared act as marriage proposals usually go today. Maybe, I nervously just blurted out one day: “O ano, pakasal na tayo?” And Thelma must have answered: “Ikaw, eh.” And that was it! Then I remember towing along my Inang, my Kuyang and my Dikong later to Thelma’s house to make the traditional “pamanhikan” and to meet Thelma’s family.

Like the proposal, the wedding itself was lacking in drama and flourish. And for a traditionalist like me, my wedding was very non-traditional. Blame it all on the restrictions that the Roman Catholic Church has put on the marriages of persons like me!

The two-page document of my Papal dispensation from the Office of the Sacred Congregation of Faith in Vatican is all in Latin! (I do not know whether it is in English already. It is probably better for it to stay in Latin, for reading it is like reading the terms and conditions of a convict upon his release from imprisonment!) But I still can understand the part where it says, among many other exhortations, that should I decide to marry, I must take extra care to do it “sine quacumque pompa”. That is, without any pomp or lavish preparations whatsoever, with only two witnesses and before a highly regarded priest of the Church. All because the Church does not want my marriage to cause what they term a “scandalum” (translated as, a cause to weaken the faith of others) among its faithful!

And so I was not allowed, even if I could afford it, to come up with a dreamy garden wedding, (no matter how solemn) at the beautiful lawn of a high-end Country Club, with all the works on food and drinks and an all day program, and with all our friends and relatives in attendance! Because that would have been a scandalum in the eyes of Church authorities who consider themselves the guardians of our faith. But don’t ask me why.

I obeyed but only to a certain extent. At the wedding rites we had three priests who concelebrated mass that included the present day’s Archbishop of Cotabato and two other priests close to Thelma and me. (There would have been more to concelebrate, but that would probably have been considered “pompa” and would have put me in trouble.) We only had some 30 attendees at the wedding mass, mostly family members and very close friends, cramped into the small chapel at the top of what was then the Manila Hilton Hotel. And so there was no bridal car. No grand entrance for the bride and groom! Instead, Thelma used the elevator from her hotel suite up to the chapel. I did the same. Reception was also at the hotel where guests swelled to about a hundred. In any case, I knew even then that my wedding did not cause a scandal among our sensitive Roman Catholic faithful!

This coming December 23, our marriage will complete its 30th year -- 30 years of journeying together, I must say, that was shared in joy as well as in pain, in good and happy as well as in hard and sad times.

I have been told this is our Pearl Wedding Anniversary. And as I begin to wonder what a pearl can bring to our marriage in the years to come, I remember reading somewhere that a pearl’s brilliance and luster develop as a result of years of irritation from a shelly substance in the water. Then it becomes a highly esteemed jewel comparable in value with precious stones.


The irritations in our marriage, like all other marriages I suppose, have been there all these years; the pearly jeweled years, I pray, should not be far behind.