SAN PABLO CITY -- WHEN MY father, Teodoro, married my mother, Francisca, 53 years ago, the first thing they did during their honeymoon was to pray the rosary.

And each time my parents made love, it was always preceded by praying the rosary, according to my mother, who will turn 80 on Oct. 9.

The practice of reciting the rosary had always been on the initiative of my father, who took it as a duty before having marital intimacy, my mother revealed.

My parents were married on April 16, 1955, by the late Fr. Joseph Stoffel, SJ at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Talisayan, Misamis Oriental. My father was 30 and my mother was 27 years old.

My father died three years ago, with a rosary in his hands, four months after my parents celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in Cagayan de Oro City.

“For him sex was sacred,” my mother said.

It was very clear in my father's mind that a married couple has a crucial role in procreation, in God’s continuing work of creating the world and humanity.

Dawn prayers

It was not difficult to believe my mother’s revelations because even when we were still children, my father would wake us up every morning at dawn to pray the rosary.

At the end of our prayers, my father would always say in Latin: “Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genetrix ” to which we would reply, “Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.”

He would pray “Oremus … ” in Latin and whose meaning we did not understand.

A secret

My mother said that when my father was courting her in Bohol while they were finishing their respective courses at the Holy Name College (now Divine Word University), she told him a secret—that despite her beauty, she was extremely in poor health.

My father was undaunted. He, who first thought of becoming a priest, became even more determined to marry her.

After they got married, my mother worked as an elementary school teacher, while my father, who was one year short of completing his Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education course, had to work double-time.

Despite my mother's poor health, she delivered five healthy babies but had two miscarriages.

However, she was frequently in the hospital, suffering from the following ailments: Hemorrhage, stroke, appendicitis, hypertension, gall bladder ailment, toxic goiter and diabetes.

She was always sick, my mother’s fellow teachers thought she would not live to see all her children finish college.

Never complained

But my father, whose faith in God was strong, told my mother: “No matter how grave one's ailment is, if God will not allow him to die, then he will live.”

Each time my mother was bedridden, my father would do all the household chores—cooking, washing (even my mother’s underwear and the baby’s diapers) and ironing clothes. He even prepared my mother’s lesson plans for school.

He never complained about doing a woman’s job.

When the children came one after the other, my father worked in the farm or sought employment to increase his and my mother’s meager income. A musician, he also joined a band.

Music scholar

He was hesitant, but with my mother’s prodding and encouragement, my father went back to school as a music scholar.

He could play various musical instruments but concentrated on the clarinet. He became a member of a college band in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental.

My father also worked as a hired hand planting and harvesting rice until he finished his degree in elementary education.

Even when he was already teaching, my father continued to look after my mother’s health.

And even while fighting for his life in a hospital in Cagayan de Oro City, unable to speak and suffering from a grave liver ailment, he would signal my sickly mother to go home and sleep well.

Mom’s birthday

My father died on Aug. 31, 2005. When we observed the 40th day after his death, we realized it fell exactly on Oct. 9, my mother’s birthday.

My father, who was raised in a barrio in Cambague, Sevilla, Bohol, once told us that when he was studying at the Holy Name College, he was being groomed and was planning to enter the seminary.

However, his parents, Benito and Jacinta Digal, were poor so he decided to finish school with the help of a scholarship.

Luzviminda Tutor, one of father’s pupils, once told me that my father was very happy because his dream to enter the seminary was realized in his only son who became a priest in 1993. That’s me.