Flame Pillar of Rizal

Leonor Rivera's Saddest Love Tale

Photo: Located at Fort Santiago (José and Leonor).

* *

Love is so near and so to be true, yet, so far to inlove more deeply. It was Rizal's hardship to his true sweetheart and fiancée, Leonor Rivera, getting love so saddened for their long distance relationship. And you know, they were near cousins in a happy lovely couple.

"There is a person who has felt deeply your absence and says that had she been here when you left you would not have succeeded in getting away. She deserves pity. You must have already received a letter from her by now as I write this. That she loves you there is no doubt now." (Letter of Jose M. Cecilio or Chengoy to Rizal which mentions Leonor Rivera, August 3, 1882)

Rizal, the man-of-letters, loves Leonor so much that remain immortalized of the undying love distance through letters. He never yields his dream that nearly someday in the greater glory of the Philippines, he would happily marry his one true love, Leonor Rivera. Though, they continued corresponding each other but they never see each other again in two hometrips of Rizal to the Philippines. Until ill-hearted Leonor's mother, Silvestra (Tia Betang), intervened their letters whom against to their blossomed romantic relationship because Rizal, that time, was a branded heretic and filibustero especially to the Church.

Silvestra bribed the postal clerk, eventually the letters stopped coming for a year. This was became a problem that the other could being forgetful or never loved each other. Until then, Leonor's mother attempted her daughter to forget Rizal because his lover never been faithful to her despite of the rumors having beautiful ladies in Europe.

About the end of the year 1890, sorrow and cry once again filled the heart of Rizal. The reason for the prolonged silence of Leonor Rivera was her ill mother and the forthcoming of marriage to the English engineer, Henry Kipping. The letter reveals on one occasion when her mother was not at home, the mailman had handed her a letter from Rizal, in which he complained that more than a year had passed without news from her. Later, she learned that her mother had intercepted Rizal's letter to her. Moreover, her mother invented stories about the rumors love affairs of Rizal in Madrid. Her mother, with great practical sense, believed that her daughter would have a more peaceful and contented life with Kipping than with a filibustero like Rizal. It was due a pressure from her mother's wish.

Leonor gave in, on three conditions: her mother would stand beside here during the wedding ceremony (it was, really, Silvestra's wedding); she would never be asked to sing again; and the piano would remain locked as long as she lived.

According to the account of some well-known historians, Leonor burned Rizal's letters. Sewed some of the ashes into the hem of her wedding dress. During the wedding ceremondy, Kipping dropped and spunned the ring several times on the altar floor as he was slipping it onto Leonor's finger. Was this a sign that Leonor never wish to love Kipping forever but only to marry by the reason that her lasting undying heart committed only to Rizal?

For Rizal, it was a great love death unfold, he was a human afterall. It was long before he confided his bestfriend, Blumentritt:

"My fiancée (Leonor Rivera), who was faithful to me for more than eleven years, is going to marry an Englishman, an engineer of the railroad. Well the first blow of the railroad is for me. However, I prefer this progress to our former situation! When I received the news, I thought I would lose my mind, but that has already passed away and I have to smile, for I must not cry. Oh, do not be surprised that a Filipino woman should prefer the name Kipping (of the engineer) to Rizal. No, don't be astonished. An Englishman is a free man and I am not. Enough! Let this be the last word!" (April 23, 1891, Brussels)