A Living Heritage of Love and Kindness

Luciano & Araceli Bacarro, a couple who devoted their lives for the people and for God. They are known by everyone as Tatay and Nanay (means father and mother.) A couple of social workers.

These couple fell in love and engaged as pen pals. They got married last January 15, 19.... Don't ask about the year. Okey, I am not so old yet. Don't get me wrong. I just forgot. Just think that I was not born yet when they got married. Of course, that is because they are my husband's parents. In fact, Tatay is now 87 years old and Nanay passed away last October 4, 2007. God blessed her fully.

What is so funny about them was that Tatay usually teased Nanay that she purposely chose to be born on Tatay's birthday. Yes, they have the same birthday but of different years. They have 5 years gap in age. You seldom find a couple having the same birth date. The photo at the right was taken on their 50th Wedding Anniversary last 2003.



Tatay and Nanay are a couple full of kindness. For them, other people is far more important than anything else. I, totally disagree with this kind of passion because for me family comes first; but they are that kind of people. Nonetheless, their passion was well passed on to their children. Imagine how blessed I am to have such a husband.

Tatay provided a cheap rent housing for poor people. Nanay agreed with Tatay for she knew Tatay's heart well more than anyone else; but the renters just totally abused their kindness. Their children complained. Nonetheless, he still insisted to give the renters a chance to pay later. Some of those renters are hard-headed and stubborn but his patience exceeds them all.

One of the renters was known to be a drug addict and an ex-convict. He stole Tatays coconuts a lot of times but still Tatay just talked to him. He didn't send him to jail. In short, that guy is now sober and respecting Tatay well. You can see a great change in that man's life now. Of course, my husband, also, played a big role for that man's life for him to make a 90 degrees change.

I can still recall well what happened that one rainy night. The man's wife gave birth in the hospital and the guy was newly sent home from jail. He didn't have any money to pay for the hospital bills. Then the guy approached my husband for help. We didn't have much money so we gave him PHP500. At the same time, my husband advised him to start thinking for the welfare of his family. Just a little gesture of love and kindness from my husband, the man cried in front of us and from there he really changed. If Tatay agreed to send this man away, we would have never known what had happened to that man and his family.

This is just one of the uncountable stories of love and kindness of Tatay and Nanay. I don't know how to express my respect to my in-laws, so I just put them into writing here. I will be writing more about those stories I mentioned. It will be under the label of Tatay and Nanay. I hope you will continue to follow these stories I'm going to post here and be blessed by it.