Flame Pillar of Rizal

Forever Rizal: "unforgettable and dearest lover"

Photo: Leonor Rivera's mementos, kept her jewelry box and Rizal's Noli Me Tangere signed and a gift to Leonor. (ctto)

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Year 1879 when Rizal was a student of medicine at UST, as we all know, he became active in courting (one at a time after breaking his heart, not a "playboy" literally) ladies in fashion's charimastic way (good conversation, poetic, manly manner) without entering compromises or committing himself to serious relationship. But one day, he was changed of heart into something memorable feeling - first enchanting greatest love from his heart.

One afternoon, Rizal and his brother Paciano went to uncle Antonio Rivera, who had a boarding house in Manila. There, Rizal stayed in the house as a boarder. Just in time, he met his cousin, Leonor Rivera, daughter of Antonio, a young beautiful girl of 13. He had never forget how he sketh her, detail to detail and every love putting her as an inspiration for life 'til Maria Clara became a living heroine as a genuine Filipino woman. If you could look the sketch of Leonor done by Rizal, she's an oriental girl - very fair skin, light brown hair, charmingly slanting eyes, a clear forehead, and a small mouth. Both beauty and talented also, she had a very pleasing voice as she could carry an interesting conversation and loves music from heart; good singing voice and can play piano and harp. At this first of her, the romantic poet Rizal fell in love and dedicated poems and sketches about her. And speaking of sketches and photos of her, according to some historian at some point of beauty, it doesn't seem to do her justice (a bit), but well she's so charmer for Rizal, in and out. For Leonor to Rizal, aside from intelligence, poetic, and gentleman, she regarded him as her "unforgettable and dearest lover."

The lovers continued to exchange their heart warmth each other through letters. One time during the Christmas vacation of 1881, Rizal received a letter in Calamba, from Leonor, with the signature used (Taimis). She complained of Rizal's failure to write. But he was so busy in undertakings into improving himself, and Rizal's love for her had not diminished at all. Until Rizal sailed first trip to Europe for his medical studies in 1882, they continued. But all of the sudden, heartbreak will be the only thing to dignify Rizal as demigod stepping through a clearer patriotic mission called "to the greater glory of the Philipines" without Leonor, though she sadly married an Englishman for a well-bad reason. In his letter to his German bestfriend, Blumentritt, he declared:

"...in my life, happiness was always followed by misfortune, and the more beautiful the one was, the more terrible the other one appeared... ...When I am alone, my gaiety disappears; many confused and sad thoughts assail me; it seems to me as if I had lost something, or as if luck had abandoned me."

For Blumentritt, as Rizal's confidant bestfriend, he adviced to forget Leonor and many more women deserve for his manly lonely heart, don't take a risk friend.

"After all misfortunes that have befallen you, now your beloved abandons you. My wife can't understand how a woman whom a Rizal has honored with his love could abandon him; she is disgusted with this girl. I myself feel it deeply, but only on your account, for I know how your heart is pained; but you are the one of the heroes who conquer pain from a wound inflicted by a woman, because they follow higher ends. You have a courageous heart, and are in love with a nobler woman, the Motherland. Filipinas is like one of those enchained princesses in the German legends, who is a captive of a horrid dragon, until she is freed by a valiant knight."

Then he wrote Rizal another letter:

"I am grieved with all my heart that you have lost the girl to whom you were engaged, but if she was able to renounce a Rizal, she did not possess the nobility of your spirit. She is like a child who cast away a diamond to seize a pebble... In other words, she is not the woman for Rizal."

Was this something nobler object of love? To sacrifice for a greater glory of the Philippines. For Leonor, Rizal had most genuine love of all and that above Heavens has the one could judge their living hearts and cast them forever to afterlife.