Jose Rizal & Josephine Bracken: How Fate Brought Them Together?

How did fate brought Jose Rizal and Josephine Bracken together?

JOSE RIZAL – This is how Jose Rizal and his dear and unhappy wife Josephine Bracken were brought together by fate only to be departed forever.

“Josephine, Who to these shores came, Searching for a home a nest, Like the wandering swallows, If your fate guides you to Shanghai, China, or Japan, Forget not that on these shores a heart beats for you.”

This is what a stanza has stated in one of Jose Rizal’s poem when he got smitten away the first time he saw Josephine Bracken. It was love at first sight. They met when she brought her father suffering double cataract to him but he can’t do no more about the incurable disease already.

However, his immovable love and admiration for Josephine withstand that a month after they met, they agreed to get married. But her father knowing their plan flared up with too much anger. Thus, it wasn’t pushed through which is also because of some other reason such as, for one, Rizal being a Mason and Josephine being a Roman Catholic.

They have conflicts and quarrels as well where one of their intense fights led to the miscarriage of Josephine. With the rough patch he’s going through in his relationship with her, he decided to go to Cuba as a medical volunteer but on his way there, he got arrested.

And before he faced his firing squad, Spanish authorities allowed him to tie the knot with Josephine. And she got widowed at 20.