Glenda Bas was a wife, a mother of five, a career woman, and a community servant. I met her in one of our early sessions of Christian Life Program for the Singles for Christ ministry in Hong Kong.
Together with her husband Roy, she stood as a quiet testament to what a Christian marriage could look like. They raised their children, built careers, and still found time to serve in their Missionary Families of Christ community. She was, in every sense, the kind of woman others looked at and silently prayed to become.
Then came the diagnosis: breast cancer. The community prayed while the family fought. She endured rounds of treatment with the kind of grace that only deep faith can produce. She remained steadfast and a calming presence my wife would always remember.
“Ikaw talaga.”
There was hope, real, tangible hope, as recovery began to take shape. But the illness returned, more aggressive this time, spreading beyond what medications could contain. The community united and rallied again, in prayer, in fundraising and in presence. God, however, had other plans. She passed away in May 2026.
Her passing left a crater in the lives of everyone she touched, most of all her husband and their five children, who must now learn to live in a world she no longer physically inhabits.
Her story is not unique in its pain. But it is extraordinary in its witness.
There is a line in the classic song “I Will Always Love You”, made iconic by Whitney Houston, that captures what most couples only feel but rarely say aloud: the ache of knowing that someday, one will have to let the other go.
“So I’ll go, but I know I’ll think of you each step of the way.”
Marriage is two people agreeing to walk together, knowing full well they, in most cases, will not finish the journey at the same time.
Roy left behind is not just grieving a person. He is grieving a future they planned together, grandchildren not yet held, ordinary mornings that will now feel unbearably quiet. And yet, what he carries with him is something no illness, no passing, can take away: the fullness of a life genuinely shared.
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Couples who chose each other through the storm
It is easy to romanticize love in pop culture, but harder to live it. In today’s celebrity culture, many relationships end as quickly as they begin. Breakups and new romances are routine, and tabloids thrive on turning these ordinary shifts into headlines, a business model that keeps them profitable precisely because such stories never stop and feeds a steady human demand for gossip and intrigue storylines.
Yet some couples in public life have shown us what quiet, fierce commitment looks like:
Denzel and Pauletta Washington have been married since 1983, navigating the distractions of Hollywood fame with a faith-grounded resolve. Denzel has said publicly that Pauletta prayed with him through his career’s most defining moments. They are proof that celebrity and fidelity are not mutually exclusive.
Kirk and Chelsea Cameron chose faith over Hollywood norms when the industry pulled in the opposite direction. Their marriage became a testimony in an environment that rarely celebrates long-term commitment.
Donnie and Marie Osmond, though not a romantic couple themselves, represent a generation of entertainers who credited family values as their anchor.
Among real-life showbiz marriages, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, married since 1988, stand as perhaps the clearest modern example of two careers, equal ambitions, and a love that grew louder rather than quieter over time. When Rita faced her own breast cancer diagnosis in 2015, Tom was not just present, he was immovable.
These couples did not have easier lives. They had better conversations.
The phrase in the song “I loved you all the way” is more than a lyrics that rhyme, it is a vow restated. It means: I did not love you only when it was easy. I loved you through the diagnosis and the treatments. I loved you in the silence after the doctor’s report. I loved you when you were too tired to speak, and when I was too afraid to pray.
I had this first-hand experience when my wife underwent her kidney transplant journey: enduring four difficult years through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Loving someone “all the way” means loving them past the point where loving them is comfortable. It means showing up on the days you have nothing left, because the commitment you made demands more than feelings — it demands presence.
Have the conversation you keep postponing.
Talk about death, not morbidly, but honestly. Discuss your wishes, your fears, your hopes for the one left behind. Couples who talk about death together are better equipped to live fully because of it, not despite it.
Consider the example of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. By all accounts, they spoke openly about faith, mortality, and what the other should do when one passed on; when June died in May 2003, Johnny did not crumble into silence but instead channeled his grief into music, releasing heartfelt recordings until his own passing just four months later, a man who had clearly been prepared by love.
Ask each other the hard questions: Where do you want to be buried? Who should the children turn to? What do you want me to do with my life after you are gone? A couple that can sit with those questions together has already built a love strong enough to survive the answers.
Love loudly, not just loyally.
Loyalty is the minimum; love is the calling. Don’t just stay, be present. Put down the phone. Look each other in the eye. Say “I love you” when there is no occasion for it. There is a quiet tragedy in couples who share the same roof for decades yet grow into strangers; physically together but emotionally oceans apart, each absorbed by doomscrolling, a fledgling career, or a worry each never thought to share aloud.
Presence is not measured in years spent under the same roof but in the small, deliberate moments of choosing your spouse over every distraction competing for your attention. A hand held during a difficult phone call, a cup of coffee made exactly the way they like it, as Roy would fondly recall in Glenda’s memorial, a glance across a crowded room that says I still choose you, without a single word spoken.
Build a life worth inheriting.
The Bas couple in Hong Kong raised five children who watched their parents serve their community faithfully. That is a legacy. Ask yourself: What are your children learning about love from watching you love each other? But legacy is not exclusive to those blessed with children.
For couples like me and Rhodylyn who walked through life without kids — whether by circumstance, by loss, or by God’s quiet design — the question shifts but does not disappear. What are the people around us learning about love from watching us love each other? Neighbors, younger couples in the community, godchildren, nephews and nieces, fellow servants in ministry. They are all watching, and a faithful, joyful, enduring marriage plants seeds in hearts that may never carry your bloodline but will carry your example long after you are gone.
Let your community witness your marriage.
The MFC community did not just pray for this family — they were shaped by them. Your marriage is not a private matter and a subject of comparison. It is a testimony, an inspiration to emulate and serve as role models. Live it in a way that gives others permission to believe in love.
There is something profoundly powerful about a couple who argues with grace (we argue, don’t we?), forgives without hiding grudges, and serves side by side. Because in a world saturated with cynicism about commitment, every faithful marriage becomes a living proof that lasting love is not a fairy tale but a daily, deliberate choice.
When Glenda walked into a prayer gathering, Bond of Sisters meetup or a prayerful presence in the background while her husband gives pastoral talks, Glenda was not just attending an event. She was his biggest supporter in the background in prayer, and a physical testament to others who might also be inspired to serve the Lord together in whatever talent or ability they have.
Leave no love unspoken.
Regret is not only for the things we did. It is for the words we meant to say. Tell your spouse what they mean to you: today, tomorrow, and on ordinary Tuesdays when nothing significant is happening. Those are the moments that become everything when one of you is gone.
In his testimony during Glenda’s funeral service, Roy revealed something that stopped every heart in the room: he said he felt like her sixth child. Every morning, without fail, Glenda prepared his coffee. It was simply her, loving him in the most ordinary way imaginable — and it is precisely that ordinariness that now leaves the loudest silence in its wake.
So do not wait for a diagnosis, a crisis, or a farewell to finally say what your heart has been holding — because the most devastating form of regret is standing at a grave with words still undelivered, realizing that time, which once felt endless, was always only borrowed.
Death does not diminish a great love; it reveals it. The grief felt across the MFC Hong Kong community is not just mourning but a chorus of people whose lives were quietly elevated by experiencing the presence of two people who choose each other faithfully for decades.
She is gone. But in her husband’s steadfastness, in her five children, in every household that prays for her — Glenda remains.
May we all love that well. May we all love all the way.