As a writer, I have had great opportunities to meet a lot of amazing people, achievers and movers, heroes and nation builders, great mentors and their brilliant students, caring parents and successful children, and top-caliber bosses and outstanding employees. Remarkable to me are couples who, having found the right one, stick to each other no matter what, and no matter the imperfections they see in each other.

NATIONAL Artist Ramon Valera designed Maritess’ exquisite wedding gown. Thus, allow me to share with you highlights from the love stories of two couples who have reached the golden years of their marriage. I wish I could tell their complete love stories, which at the very least may require 10,000 words each minus the exciting details, but limitations dictate that I pick up facets of their married lives that show why their marriages, even if not flawless (which marriage does not have its occasional issues?), may still be described as made in heaven.

For sure, they started truly in love with each other, so that’s one big point. If it’s a forced thing, how can it last? But then, love has a way of leaving, if you will allow Proust to put it that way, so it is really up to the lovers to keep love, or let it go. In both cases, they have kept love, and we can learn much from them.

Michel and Amparito, gourmets and lovers in Paris. Cebu’s golden couple

It’s been years since I last visited Cebu, my memories of the place enhanced by the hospitality extended to me and my group by the couple Michel and Amparito Lhuillier (nee Llamas), about whom I have written a number of times.

Michel was her first love and Amparito, his last, the one he chose to marry and intended, as they say in fairy tales, to live with happily ever after.

The couple shares many traits, but one is their strong business sense. Just as Amparito could gauge the value of a piece of jewelry just by looking at it, Michel could foresee the possibilities in a piece of land that may now lie idle, useless and even located on the wrong side of town. Of the last, he told me, “Any mistake one makes in buying land is eventually rectified with the passing of time.”

If their marriage has reached this far, it is because Michel and Amparito know when to support each other and when not to get in each other’s way. While this does not sum up their formula for an enduring relationship, it somehow hints at how they have lived their lives from day one, even when they were still sweethearts.

At the same time, Amparito, being the more animated of the two, invokes three words whenever she is asked her rules for a happy and successful life, and by extension, her married life: “Patience, kindness and forgiveness.” But above all these three, of course, is love.

GOD is the third party in the Pinedas’ love affair. PHOTO FROM THE BOOK “ELEMENTS OF LOVE” BY BING CARRION Dating in a double-decker

Michel, then a freshman in La Salle, met Amparito when Anthony Trillo, her cousin, introduced him to her in a jam session. Amparito immediately observed, “He did not talk at all, but he danced like Elvis Presley.”

Eventually, they dated by riding the double-decker Motorco bus that went back and forth along the stretch of then Dewey (now Roxas) Boulevard, and when they were hungry, they ate chicken barbecue with java rice at the Aristocrat. “It only cost five pesos and 90 centavos then,” remembered Michel with a laugh.

“I was on allowance from my father,” said Michel, who had been a Green Archer from Grade 1. In college, he earned extra money by selling watches from his father’s jewelry shop. Most of his customers were De La Salle brothers and faculty members. “When I had extra cash, I brought Amparito to Alba’s Super Club.”

That he was obstinate when he was facing a challenge was evident even then when Michel rallied support for Amparito who was chosen as a Miss Caltex finalist. To win the title, she had to get the votes of vehicle owners who patronized Caltex gasoline stations. Michel campaigned hard and gathered four million solid La Sallite votes, and he himself delivered the ballot boxes to the Caltex office. She made it only as a runner-up but his concern, backed up by efforts, strengthened her faith in the man who, “I knew even then would stand by me,” she said candidly.

The memory of those halcyon days has been etched on the mind of Michel. He shared, “I have known her for so long. She was my steady for five-and-one-half years. She was a terrific woman then, and she has even become more terrific through the years. She was one of the prettiest women of Manila then, and she had a long line of suitors who arrived in their home in their expensive cars. As we used to joke, I would arrive in my Cadilakad (roughly translated as “Cadi-walk,” combination of Cadillac and the word lakad, Filipino word for walk) but she favored me over them. She stayed faithful to me and gave me her full support.”

Amparito, he confided, “helped me sell watches. And sometimes, when we went out to dinner, my friends who had cars gave us a ride while they were on their way to their girlfriends. She did not care that other boys had so much money while I had to scrimp and save to be able to go out with her.”

Five years after they met, they finally married. “My father had wanted me to finish my master’s degree abroad right after graduation,” he recounted, “but I insisted on marrying Amparito and went against his wishes.” He proposed to her while they were atop a Ferris wheel in Luneta.

Notwithstanding the old man’s displeasure, the wedding was a grand one, with the bride donning a creation of Pedrito Legaspi, for whom she modeled at charity fashion shows organized by socialite Conchita Sunico. She also wore a two-carat diamond engagement ring. The matrimonial rites took place at the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, followed by a wedding breakfast at the Casino Español.

THE Lhuilliers’ mansion provides a magnificent setting for their enchanted life. Seven-year wait

Susing and Maritess Pineda (nee Mendoza) met in New York for the first time when she was only 15 years old. “I was there for my Christmas vacation while I was studying at the Ciudad Ducal in Avila, Spain after graduating from high school in Maryknoll College,” recalled Maritess. Susing was about to take his masters in Saint John University in New York. It was a brief encounter.

Maritess eventually came home to Manila where she took up commerce at St. Theresa’s College. She would bump into Susing in a college fair at the Assumption. He had by then returned from graduate school.

Soon, he was visiting her. Sometimes, Susing would be accompanied by his bosom buddy, Henry Cojuangco. Maritess recalled that their first double date had them going out with Bambi Zulueta and Gemma Cruz Araneta.

MICHEL supports Amparito in her social development work, for which she received an honorary doctorate degree. Later, after finishing college and taking the CPA exam, she left for New York. Susing wanted her to stay, but she assured him she would return. Maritess recounted, “I told him I would become a better person if I first left to pursue my plans.” They did not commit to each other, although she told him that if they were meant for each other, that was something they could work on when she returned. At the same time, she asked him to join the Cursillo. They also heard Mass together as she was preparing to leave for abroad.

While she was abroad, he wrote to her daily. They soon realized it was difficult to have a long-distance relationship. They became closer when she returned from New York. “It was actually a period for getting to know each other more,” said Maritess. They finally married in December 1968 at the Santuario de San Jose in Greenhills. Fr. Mark Horan of the Carmelite Order solemnized their marriage vows. The wedding breakfast took place at the Plaza Restaurant in Makati, attended by 800 guests, mostly friends of the bride’s parents. She wore a gown made by Ramon Valera, who would be declared a national artist in the future.

SUSING and Maritess unwind in the “City of Romance.” That’s, of course, getting ahead of the story. It took seven years of courtship before Susing and Maritess tied the knot. Susing said, “Even if I would have wanted to speed it up, we agreed to make sure that we knew each other well, and that when the time came, we would both be ready to make the right decision.”

Maritess noted that from the way “I saw my parents, I knew that marriage is for life and no way could we walk out of it if things did not work out. It was for life. We had to prepare ourselves not only materially but emotionally and spiritually. I never prayed so hard in my life. I asked our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. Therese, my patrons, to guide me and show me if he was the right man for me.”

God has been good to the couple. Just recently, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Susing shared, “I must admit in spite of some ups and downs, it has been a happy, very fruitful, and united life together.”

Maritess affirmed, “It was our being God-centered that helped us stay happily together for all these years. It really takes three to stay married — the Lord with the two of us. These are the same values we continue to instill in our children. We brought them up by ensuring that the Lord is the center of their life through the Mass and daily prayers, and that all the time, they should call upon the Lord for guidance and ask Mama Mary for guidance and protection.

AMPARITO and Michel, the good-looking bride and groom. “Susing and I, as a couple, always make it clear to them that all the blessings we enjoy come from the Lord and, therefore, we should live a life of gratitude, never letting a day pass without giving praise and thanks to the Lord.”

Susing and Maritess joined “Marriage Encounter” under Fr. Ruben Tanseco. They took the Christian Life Program for 12 weeks, became members of Christian Brotherhood, and eventually joined the Couples for Christ. Through the years, they would be part of weekly prayer groups while attending formation sessions “where we learned how to improve our relationship with each other and with the Lord,” shared Maritess.