The Legacy I Want For My Filipina Wife When I Die
As promised when I made the last video called Our Fili-Am love story is going to end sometime, I ended on a positive note, that I had things I wanted to accomplish for her in the unknown amount of time we had left together and I will touch on that near the end. Please subscribe to Love Beyond The Sea for perspectives and help for a foreigner who is interested in marrying a Filipina and please join me if you are married to a Filipina but I think what I try to convey can help anyone looking for a wife.
Go ahead and leave a comment and get notifications for future videos. I do have goals for my marriage that will leave a legacy for my Filipina wife. I am probably the first person in my wife’s life who thinks way ahead. I tell her I am a man and we tend to think about the future especially if we are married. Would you agree?
We have been married since May of 2015. We want to retire in the Philippines after I turn 62. I suppose you could call that the start of the golden years, a term I have never really liked. I married my wife in Davao City Philippines when I was 53. Could we get 20 years together? I don’t know, I sure hope so. That would blow my mind considering how difficult it was to find a wife. Even if I died today, there has been enough time to leave her a legacy but with more time, an even better one. Here are four quotes that define the kind of legacy I am talking about-
“The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.” —Benjamin Disraeli
What kind of example do I want to leave my Filipina? One would be unselfishness. From the time we got married until the end of it, I want my wife to remember that I went out of my way for her sake, to be unselfish and put her needs above my own. I want her to know how it feels to do that, and how it feels to believe the good she will do for others for the rest of her life.
Another is to be generous. I want my wife to know when all she has is her memories of us, that I always encouraged her to be generous to others and that I was always generous to her. I have told her God blesses the generous and that’s what I want for her. She may have another 25 years left after I die. I want to be sure the time we’ve spent together will make a difference in her life and the life of others in the Philippines.
“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” —William James
What I want is that at some point my wife will begin to have a long-range view of life that includes her service to others. I want her to leave this world well thought of, to make a mark in the world, to impact her family and friends. I want her at some point to consider the legacy that she will leave behind. I tell her she should use her gifts and abilities to help others, in the church, anywhere. I want her to trust God, to know his word and to do his will. I believe that will result in a blessed life.
“I think the whole world is dying to hear someone say, ‘I love you.’ I think that if I can leave the legacy of love and passion in the world, then I think I’ve done my job in a world that’s getting colder and colder by the day.” —Lionel Richie
My wife has heard “I love you” a ton of times and I won’t let up on that. What if she had not married me? What if she married someone who wasn’t as concerned about her? I agree with Lionel Richie that the world is getting colder and colder. Has he watched Philippines YouTube vloggers lately?
When it’s time for me to go, I don’t want there to be any doubt that she married someone who loved her very much, despite knowing her for such a short time before getting married. In those early days I knew I wanted to love her and at the end of my life I want her to know just how much I did.
“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” —Shannon L. Alder
This YouTube channel Love Beyond The Sea is about my wife and I both finding love beyond the sea. We had to take risks and were separated by 9800 flight miles yet were able to find each other. I made the first move by joining Christian Filipina on March 13 of 2015 and 59 days later we were husband and wife. That’s a story in itself for her to tell others about us. I want to be on her mind after I am gone. I want there to be reminders she can see about us, such as this channel, the house in the Philippines we built, and the many photos and videos of us together.
I want our marriage to be more to her than just a foreign man marrying a woman from the Philippines. That happens all the time. People get married all the time. If I hadn’t decided to try international dating, I wouldn’t have been able to leave her a legacy through our marriage or to help her to leave a legacy of her own. I want to have an impact in her life long after I am gone.
I started teaching her how to drive in the Philippines before she immigrated and then after she arrived. She is able to drive in the Philippines now too, which amazes me. She is excellent with directions. She drives herself to work, she has driven friends and family around in two countries, who knows how she will use her driving ability long after I’m gone?
I am not sure what kind of an effect her working and living here in America will have on her long-term but I am eager for everyone in her life to find out. I am excited for how she parlays all her experiences here for the rest of her life. We have multiple properties in the Philippines, and it has been suggested to her that perhaps she would enjoy and be good at being a real estate agent in the Philippines.
She could make 5 percent on all the land and property she helps sell and could do this in her 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. You might ask why in the world she would need to do this when she won’t have to work a for a second when we retire there? She wants to have some kind of job when there, always has said that to me, and I want to help her accomplish that. Something where she is her own boss and isn’t physically demanding.
I saw Garth Brooks in concert twice in like three days a long time ago. I memorized about 50 of his songs. One of them I liked was his first # 1 hit called If Tomorrow Never Comes. Back then having a wife was beginning to seem unlikely. The words mean something different to me now that I am married.
[Chorus]
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her?
Did I try in every way to show her every day
That she's my only one?
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face the world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes?
Some say your Filipina was okay before you met her and she’ll be okay when your gone. That’s not good enough for me. I am not interested in okay and I am not interested in leaving her the way I found her. I could be a better husband. I can influence her physically, emotionally and spiritually better over time, if I can have it. I want her to think to herself “what would I have done if I hadn’t found him?” That’s because I want her life to be better and more satisfying because I had been in it.
In the next video in this series, I will consider if it is worth marrying a Filipina later in life.
I am glad that today I had one more day with my Love Beyond The Sea.