Both children and survivors of a world war that devastated what then was normal.
Mama was the eldest girl of a brood of 11 siblings. During the storm of violence which interrupted her young life, she faced the horrors of the barrel of a gun, and experienced butchering a whole horse to feed the family.
Papa, the more privileged one, escaped to the mountains with his family, and spent his exiled days holed up in a room devouring the extensive library of books his father had. This is the time Papa started his lifelong passionate affair with Philosophy.
Both of them so alike and yet so opposite. They met at Silliman campus where Papa was at the forefront of student campus activities: president of the student government, editor of the student newspaper. Wherever Papa was, Mama was: secretary of the student government, Papa’s assistant-editor-in-chief. Campus figures.
Papa then was an intellectual ‘adonis’ an agnostic. Mama was immersed in church serving various ministries, especially its evangelistic and jail ministries. A bright, bugoy chinita energy ball, Papa was the rich kid. God sent Mama through school by gifting her with various scholarships, high school, college, masters and then PhD. She would say, my parents did not send me to school, I did not send myself to school, God did!
Here is where their romance started. SU campus, dates along Rizal boulevard, especially in the area where there is now an orange gazebo.
They were married in a simple wedding ceremony in Cebu; they had to borrow from a friend a wedding ring right there and then because they forgot all about the ring. Their wedding feast consisted of pancit, boiled bananas, and inun-unan or in Tagalog, paksiw na isda.
The highlight of their romance was when Papa sullenly asked Mama, “Why is it that you never bring me with you to join you in your church activities?” Mama was elated, When Papa asked that he be baptized, Mama’s heart jumped with utmost joy!
Their wish was to be cremated, and that their ashes be scattered in the sea. Papa and Mama’s wishes were fulfilled on July 13, 2013 at the place where they spent most of their sweetheart days — at the orange gazebo fronting Bethel Guesthouse.
We gave you the grandest wedding we could, Ma and Pa, hope you both liked it!
An excerpt of their wedding ceremony at the boulevard:
As husband and wife, Claro and Riorita, you are one with God. Your lives are unbroken and you loved each other without end. Be this now your final journey, this ceremony, symbolic of your constant faith and abiding love in our Majestic Father in heaven for eternity you are with Him. Your lives were merged in a very beautiful marriage, your marriage now continues, and is brought therefore into its true completion. Hope, faith, trust in our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour and our Redeemer, you are one in final Matrimony. Your lights shine and even death will not extinguish it; your flame will just continue to grow in magnitude.
To everyone who had been with us in our journey, our family says a very grateful grateful THANK YOU for being with us. What is seemingly a very sad and sorrowful physical parting of our dearest Mama Rio is, as it should be, a joyous occasion of celebration. Have a blessed and wonderful day with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! With all our love… the Ceniza siblings.
