MANILA, Philippines?We?ve heard a lot of love stories in our time, but few of them can compare to the truly exceptional tale of the marriage of Pio de Castro III and Joy Soler.

Pio was a writer-director of note whose high-flying career was cut short when he was felled by a stroke. His wife, Joy, was a fine stage actress and career woman in her own right, but she chose to limit her activities and focus on taking good care of her bedridden husband.

Efforts

Things got worse when Pio slipped into a coma that lasted for many years. Some other spouses would have given up hope, or at least relaxed their focus and determination, but not Joy. She redoubled her efforts to make her husband?s situation as comfortable as possible. As any caregiver of a comatose patient can tell you, that?s a very tall order.

And yet, Joy did it with?that?s it: joy. She ignored the stress, expense and frustration and focused instead on the little things that gave her patient and herself pleasure.

After Pio passed away, you would think that, after grieving, Joy would focus on other things, perhaps start a new chapter in her life. Well, she did resume her career and became a top tourism executive with regional responsibilities, but her devotion to Pio never wavered.

She would mark the important anniversaries of his life by meeting with his friends and thanking them for their fealty to him. Of course, it wasn?t lost on us that her fealty to and love for Pio far surpassed our own.

One time, covering a regional tourism conference in Malaysia, we saw Joy at work and marveled at her expertise, energy and creativity. We also sensed that the other regional managers she was working with were great admirers of her organizational skills and managerial ability.

Another time, in Singapore, we met up again with Joy. This time around, she was in another line of work with a regional magazine, but was enjoying herself as much as ever, and basking in the obvious admiration of her costaffers, who made up a veritable mini-United Nations of nationalities.

Treatment

Then came the sad news that Joy was stricken with cancer, and we started praying for her. When her treatment appeared to have had positive results, we asked her to play an important role in our ?Birhen ng Caysasay? musical. She portrayed a character who was also a cancer patient, and infused the role with great insight and specificity.

Unfortunately, things later took a turn for the worse and Joy had to bow out of the production, but her informed interpretation of the pivotal role continued to have a strong impact on the production, which we regard as one of our best (it?s being restaged in Taal, Batangas on Oct. 25).

Important position

Over a year later, Joy was feeling better again, so she assumed an important executive position at Peta, and also revived her acting career. In her new capacity, Joy got in touch with us to catch some Peta productions, and we were happy to see her doing such good thespic work again. Therefore, we were devastated to learn later that Joy had fallen ill again?and this time, she didn?t recover.

Joy de Castro is no longer with us, but we think of her often and continue to cherish her rare combination of talent, kindness, vivacity, intelligence, sensitivity, creativity?and yes, joy of life.

Most of all, we honor her exceptional love for Pio, proven and vivified through many years of devoted care. To us, the Joy-Pio story, relatively unheralded though it may have been, rivals some of the greatest love stories the world has ever heard about. We should all be so lucky to experience something like it in our own lives. ?No greater love!