Let there be spaces in your togetherness

El Rio y Mar, Coron, Palawan. — Here we are, still marooned in the amazing array of islands, nestled in a far-away valley, embraced by the feet of two mountains that look like the miniatures of Mayor Volcanoes. The wedding of my son, Jeremiah, with Lara was a good three days back. It was a fantastic and intimate experience, where only close relatives and friends were witnesses to the joining of two lives, sweetened by music and champagne and made more meaningful by poems of Khalil Gibran, and passages from Saint Paul's epistles to the Corinthians on the purest meaning of love. That was 72 hours ago, but we decided to stay. But we refuse to leave this newly-discovered paradise of all green vegetation and the blue seas that are both untouched by the greed of human hands.

Jeremiah and Lara were in love since five years ago, even when Lara is seldom in town being an international flight stewardess of Qatar Airlines, and my son is also busy in the field of advertising and marketing. And so, in the wedding ceremony, I gave them my blessings as the father of the groom: “You will be together when the breezes of life's beauty engulf you in moments of ecstasies. You shall be together when your children and grandchildren shower you two in your happiest of days. You shall be together when the storms of anguish and the strong waves of pains and frustrations shall attack you in the darkest of nights. You shall be together in embrace even when the world, the whole world oppose and fight against what you believed to be right. "

Then, my wife added her own blessings: "You shall be together in moments of abundance and prosperity, and your togetherness becomes even stronger in the days of want and poverty. You shall be together in success and victory. And still be together in failures and agony. You shall be together in good health and in bad, even in the doors of death. Together to face life's many riddles and mysteries. To work together giving your children roots so that they remain grounded on strong values and traditions. And also to give them wings, together you should teach them how to fly, even to soar over the many waves of challenges. And I quickly added: To borrow Gibran's line, let there be spaces in your togetherness.

You are together but you do not own each other. There will be distances and times that might separate you physically, but there is a strong bond that holds your souls together. You are like two islands but your shores are bridged by the ocean that forever, keeps you in touch with each other, even when there are spaces in between. And so, do not suffocate each other by constant interference, nor strangle each other's freedom by uninvited intervention. Your God gave you each a different soul, where in each one, there are inner chambers that may be kept, always closed, even as your love transcends doors. For love is stronger than any obstacle, it can unlock all the secrets that have been left unspoken, by just the language of your eyes.

To be together does mean that you are in constant intertwined embrace. You can be one even when distance, time and even death prevents you the gift of seeing, but never the gift of remembering, and of loving. You have the power in your hearts to keep your togetherness even when you are apart.