Mauro A Cerdena

He was born on January 14, 1955 in Biñan, Laguna, Philippines. After working his way through school and earning a degree at Emilio Aguinaldo College, he began a career as a healthcare radiologic technologist in Manila. He leapt out into the world, accepting work in Saudi Arabia to help build a better life for himself, his parents, and his siblings, who he helped to support through schooling and college. Over those ten years, he began his lifelong study of kali, karate, and jeet kune do martial arts. He later shared this passion by founding his own martial arts school, building a legacy of life-changing growth and learning among decades of pupils.

In 1990, he leapt again to Peekskill, New York, where he continued his medical imaging career. Two years later, in the midst of a tennis game, he met the love of his life, Daisy, and after three years of courtship, they were married. They started a family with the birth of Danielle Monique and moved to Houston, where Nathan Angelo was born.

Mauro continued his career at Cypress Fairbanks Medical Center, where he became a resident imaging expert for 20 years, earning accolades, helping countless patients, and nurturing the careers of colleagues and students alike. He retired from Houston Methodist Hospital at Willowbrook in 2023. Across those years — even as he earned another degree in business administration at Sam Houston State University — he worked with determination to provide for his wife and children, a strong and steadying presence as they together navigated repeated medical challenges along with the more sweetly ordinary mazes of a family’s life.

Mauro is preceded in death by his parents, Francisco and Bonifacia, and his siblings, Marites and Francis, Jr. He is survived and will be remembered always by his wife, Daisy, his children Danielle “Nikki” and Nathan, his siblings Gloria (Eric+), Jorge (Hermie), Romeo (Lonie), Victor (Menchie), Irene (Leo+), Ernesto (Mary), and Jocelyn (XC), his parents-in-law, Crescencio and Maxima, brother-in-law, René (Joy), sister-in-law Karina (Gerry), and many nieces and nephews.

A funeral mass is scheduled for Thursday, January 23, 2025 at 11:00am at Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church, 11507 Huffmeister Road in Houston, followed by a memorial and reception at the same location.