It is with a heavy heart that the husband and children of Lourdes Tongson Pizarro wish to inform her family and friends that she went back to her Maker on February 7, 2021, after a long battle with multiple organ failure and encephalopathy, as a result of an initial covid infection last December. She was cleared of the covid infection but the virus had already ravaged her delicate body and eventually succumbed to the leftover complications. She recently was preceded in death by her brother, Jose Pedro Tongson, two weeks before her passing, whose death she never knew about because of her critical state at that time.

Lourdes was born in the Philippines on November 11, 1958. Coming from a big family of 12 with a lawyer father and a government auditor mother, raising a big family was a challenge. They were brought up with the help of older single aunts back in the Philippines. Part of her childhood was also spent living in a convent of Paulinian nuns where, at a very tender age, she and her siblings were given strict Catholic training. As her children's bedtime story, she would always recount that in the convent, when she was around 5-7 years old, they would be woken up at four in the morning and made to walk their way to a church adjacent to the convent where they, on the way, would encounter spirits of dead townspeople asking to pray for their souls. Her strict Catholic training would carry on later in life and had been passed, not strictly, but patiently, to her children and grandchildren. She was always seen with a rosary in her hands even at her workplace.

As a young adult, Lourdes loved reading romance and mystery novels. She had a collection of Mills-and-Boone paperbacks back in the day. Her passion for fiction novels developed her skill for writing. This helped her land various secretarial jobs back in the day as her superiors loved how she wrote memos and reports. Although Lourdes held many positions back in the day, she would always go back to her favorite occupation: being a mother and a house maker. Recently, she lived and worked as a resident caregiver in Nevada where she developed a close friendship with her patient's family members. She was treated like a sister and aunt.

Lourdes married Jan Vincent Pizarro on September 23, 1978 and has been with him for the past 43 years. They had her first child, Kenneth Vincent, when she was nineteen. Her youth did not become an obstacle in being a dedicated mother. She had two beautiful daughters, Janice Guinevere and Maureen Elizabeth, afterwards. She is survived by and had left behind these family members and additionally, her grandchildren, Lukas, Krysten, Tyler, Heather, and EJ, her living brothers and sisters, Exaltacion, Corazon, Julian, Charito, Mario, Yolanda, Ferdinand, and Agustina and their families. She is also survived by her daughter-in-law, Mylene, and sisters-in law, Rosemarie (and husband Noel), Geraldine and Anne, and brothers-in-law Rafael and Enrico and their families.

Lourdes was an advocate of family life. She was a dedicated wife. She never left her husband's side no matter what the circumstances were. She loved her children and was an excellent mother. She made many sacrifices for her children in her lifetime. She was extremely close to all her grandchildren often showering them with unequaled attention and expensive toys. In return, her grandchildren loved her dearly. To others, she was known to be very personable, having score of friends wherever she lived and worked. Although she was silent and meek, she was actually the life of the party and knew how to entertain guests. People would open up to her and became their confidant. She gave worthy and wise life advice to those who needed them. She was known to easily forgive and never bear grudge. She was patient, kind and humble and taught forbearance to people. She always said that love of family is second to love of God.

Lourdes will always be remembered and missed for her love of tracing family roots and searching ancestry websites. She had successfully traced the Tongson family roots back to China and the Pizarro family roots back to Spain. She had a notebook containing all the names of ancestors all the way back to the 18th century. In the family, she was known to have dreams that would later come true. Her love for her family extended to her nephews and nieces whom she regarded as her own children. She treated her closest friends as siblings. She cozied up to and bonded well with most of her sisters-in-law and cared for them like sisters.

Before her hospitalization, Lourdes thought of retiring because of the outbreak of the virus at her workplace. She had second thoughts because she had a brother who needed expensive medical care in the Philippines who she wanted to co-sponsor. Unfortunately, she did contract the virus at work and never recovered. Even in the end, she was still thinking about her family.

Please pray for Lourdes's eternal repose. Due to the pandemic, final arrangements are still TBD  and will be announced soon. To donate flowers, please click the link "Send Flowers". For more updates, please contact husband Jan Vincent or son Kenneth at 408-8485158 in the US and daughters Janice (at +63977-7653647 and iMessage/iCloud account: janpizarro925@icloud.com ) and Maureen (at +63977-7653658) in the Philippines.