An encounter written in the stars

Batas Mauricio .

IT was, by all indications, an encounter written in the stars. The man, in 1956, was then working as a clerk-typist at a law firm in Sampaloc, Manila. He was 22 years of age, was still unmarried, and was carefree and enjoying his bachelorhood. He had, in fact, just come from the province, trying to find his destiny in the city with his knowledge of typing and a little stenography.

The young lady was just starting to bloom into full womanhood at 20 years of age, even as she was about to graduate from a normal school in Manila, clinching a degree in elementary education in the process. She has barely left her child-like demeanor, cloistered and sheltered as she was by her close relatives from the North, but this did not prevent her from venting her displeasure over the loud talking that a man and a fellow passenger was making in the bus she had taken to bring her home in the house of her parents in Quezon City that fateful day.

“Your voices are way too loud,” the young lady told the man who was then sitting at the seat directly at her back. When she said this, she tried to glance at the man, and she saw that he was wearing a white long-sleeves polo, white slacks, and white shoes. He was talking to the man seated next to him, in her own dialect which was the language of her people from the North, the Ilocano dialect.

“It seems to me you are also Ilocanos, so why are you talking so loud?” the lady asked in Ilocano, directly addressing the man who, she thought then, could have been someone who was modeling a white attire. At that point, the man apologized, in Ilocano too, to the young woman. He then hurried to explain, rather sheepishly, that he and his friend were talking in loud voices because they wanted precisely to grab her attention.

When she heard what the man said, the young lady blushed, telling him and his friend that what they were doing was distracting her attempt to study while she was travelling in the bus. She said she had to study even while she was on board the bus because she was then preparing for her final exams before her graduation ceremonies. The man again offered his apologies, and then maintained his silence.

When the bus reached a place in Quezon City, the woman alighted, and the man strained his neck to look at the place, which was an apartment in Project 3, Quezon City. While the young woman was going into the apartment, the man saw that she looked back to where he was, and, to his amazement, she threw a demure smile at him. The man’s heart suddenly overflowed with a joy previously unknown to him, leading him to make a vow to wait for the lady once again to board her bus for home the following day.

The man and the young lady became good friends since. And as the days progressed into weeks, and weeks into months, they found themselves meeting more often. In one of their meetings, the man confessed that he, in reality, had been endeavoring to wait on her everyday at the same bus stop, riding the same bus without her knowing that he was also there, from the very first time he had laid his eyes on her.

The frequent meetings between the two blossomed into something more beautiful than mere friendship. At their young ages, their desire to be with one another all the time grew stronger by the day, until they could no longer deny that their hearts have started beating as one–truly enamored and in love with each other. By God’s design, they got married on July 8, 1956, and thereafter stuck with each other literally through thick and thin, surmounting even the gravest of marital problems, until they both departed from this world. The man died in 2016, while the woman followed him to heaven in 2018.

On July 8, 2019, some 63 years have lapsed from the very day they tied the knot. And although they are no longer around nowadays, we, their children, continue to recall with fondness and love their marital union, because we know that the two (Mr. Melanio Pauco Mauricio Sr. and Mrs. Salvacion Lazo Mauricio), fully discharged their duties and responsibilities towards each other, and as our parents. I am asking our dear readers here to offer a prayer or two for them. Thank God in His Name of Jesus, Amen!

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com, mmauriciojr111@gmail.com