Still married.

Today my family is celebrating my parents' 21st wedding anniversary- well there's really no "celebration" because Papa is assigned some place else and so there's only me, Mama, and my sister Maria here- watching Budoy. But I have to say this is their best anniversary yet, at least in my opinion. Stay with me for a few more minutes and you'll know why.

Theirs is a marriage which irritatingly goes from mountaintops to deep valleys every now and then. One moment they are seriously fighting, but after a day or two they become like teenage sweethearts who are madly in love with each other again. For the longest time I've been complaining- sometimes silently, but many times audaciously- both to them and to God about why they married in the first place, and why they remain to be until now. I questioned the purity and the genuineness of their love towards each other and I used to tell myself that when I get married someday, I will never be like them. But now God amazingly gave me new eyes to view my parents' marriage. I am proud to say that they truly, genuinely, purely love each other.

They have ups in their marriage after going through great downs because they love each other and more importantly, they choose to love each other. I realize now that they too know how to go beyond the shallowness of their emotions and still go on to love. They are forgiving and they want to be reconciled again even after a fight. And I'm not just talking about minor quarrels, I'm talking about serious, heart-breaking fights. They choose to overlook an offense- how could I have missed this all these years? Yesterday while chatting with them I was overjoyed when Papa commented that marriages should have no expiration. He married Mama for good! And I have reason to believe that Mama feels the same way too. All this time I have been focusing on the ugly details, but thankfully now I know that their love is very real. I applaud God for them; after all, He wrote their love story.