A Grieving Widow's Love Vow

Volume 3, Issue No. 30

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America and beyond . . . . . .

 

 Our latest as of Monday, February 7, 2022 

~ The love month is here and so is the day set aside for all lovers worldwide. True, Valentine's Day has taken a commercial meaning but its deeper significance should not be taken for granted. A few days ago in New York City, a bereaved wife defined what love means to her. Losing her husband to a murderer's bullet, she bemoaned the experience and expressed in no uncertain terms what loving and losing was worth to her. 

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A DECLARATION OF ENDLESS LOVE 

'I Love You To The End of Time'

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson

TORONTO - The words never left me since the widow of a slain New York City police officer expressed her anguish over the loss of her husband, Detective Jason Rivera, in Harlem on January 21.

He was responding to a 911 call for help with a fellow officer, Wilbert Mora, who was also fatally shot by a gunman who tried to escape but was gunned down by another officer and died days later.

"I love you to the end of time," Rivera's widow, Dominique Luzuriaga, vowed before hundreds of mourners that filled the St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan for his funeral on January 28. "I'm the loneliest without you," she sobbed, the pain evident in every word she intoned. (Video at: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nypd-officer-jason-rivera-to-be-mourned-at-st-patricks-funeral/3520566/).

That was a cathartic moment for her. She was like a dam that broke loose, her tearful tribute akin to the onrush of water, so full of emotions as she let go and accepted the reality of his departure and diffidently surrendered to a love lost.

The expressions of undying love, extraordinary in these times, struck me, and many others I'm sure, for one woman's deep commitment to the person she most trusted to spend a life with. The words are now seared into my consciousness.

Luzuriaga's sorrow would take time to heal but there's a sparkle that flows out of her heartbreaking remarks. That sparkle gives us hope. We all love to be loved, to be cared, and to be exalted in our humility.

"I love you to the end of time" sounds awkward In this age of instant love and lack of ardor. Yet the meaning, its pragmatic and romantic essence, is there for everyone to feel, except perhaps the lovelorn.

How fitting the language is, one unmistakably coming from the heart, as we celebrate what has evolved through centuries as Valentine's Day on February 14th. (More info at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day).

Rather than be consumed by grief, I'd rather look at her situation as a renewal of enduring affection - the very essence of February as the love month, particularly on this Valentine's Day.

To me, Luzuriaga is an inspiration. I commiserate with her loss but at the same time, I feel ennobled as a man by her declaration. 

Every man or woman ought to have someone to tell him or her "I love you to the end of time" and be forever blissful for it.

And may I end this brief essay with a quote from Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet and diplomat who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971: “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving  . . . " (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).