A wonderful piece of love is the idea that in it’s most purest form, it will be unconditional, unwavering and last a lifetime. For Lenora, a wife, mother and lovely Italian American woman living in New York, she is an energy that one would revel in. It is Christmas Eve and she is baking cookies not only for Santa but for the return of her husband Kenneth who is in the Navy. She speaks of the joys and challenges of being a military wife, the struggles of her pregnancy with her twins and the rituals that her and Kenneth have in their marriage. One is the idea of opening one gift on Christmas Eve. The kids always go for the biggest box not understanding the most amazing gifts can come in small packages. For Lenora, the love she has for her husband, kids and their lives can never be folded and put into a box but no true love can. As the night goes on, cookies are done, kids are in bed, Lenora can’t wait to wake up to her husband walking through the door. Instead with the rise of the sun she was greeted by three Navy officials, one of which was the Chaplin. This is the story of one woman who is enjoying her simple yet complicated life patiently waiting for her husband to return from deployment but on this Christmas, there were no gifts, only sorrow. Sometimes we never know how strong we are until that strength is challenged. But with the love her children and the forever strength she finds inside of her, she will continue to be everything she was before the that Christmas Day morning. She will love, thrive, and find those little gifts to make her smile and push forward.
Small Gifts
(Lenora Rossi, an Italian woman in her early thirties bakes cookies in the kitchen. A slight hum, a joy and a pep in her step is clear.)
Kenneth, my husband (smiles) is what I called a handsome man and what my very Italian father called a Figlio di puttana (realizes tha audience doesn’t know what she has said) oh I’m sorry, a son of a bitch. (smiles) He didn’t like Kenneth very much. A Navy man showing up in his uniform to tell him that wanted to date his daughter, marry his daughter and eventually be the father of her children (looks in the kitchen) “Gretchen, Kenneth Jr. the cookies are almost done- and no you cannot have cookies for dinner- and make sure your rooms are clean before run down those stairs.” (back to the audience) Where was I, oh my father, yes, he always wanted his little girl to get married but he wanted it to be to a good simple man, steady local work, good father and all that. It was the “local work” that was the issue. Kenneth being in the Navy wearing his uniform was something my father respected (beat) but he worried. He worried so much that he made me worry and I honestly was never concerned. It’s a special man that can make you feel comfortable with him deploying to other countries for 6-9-12 months at a time and I just workday day to day taking care of the kids and the house and just… living. I send pictures, he calls as often as he can and if you ever want to know- the truth is as long as the person you’re with is the kind of person that can put your heart at rest simply by saying “Honey, I’m fine. I love you. I’ll see you soon.” That’s all I need. (shrugs) Because when he’s coming home and I make his favorite dinner- pot roast, potatoes and gravy, when I bake his favorite cookies- sugar cookies with a chocolate heart sitting right in the center “because that’s where all the kisses go” he says, “right in the middle of the sweetest sugar.” (laughs) My husband’s flirting can be a special kind of poetry at times. (looks at her watch) But it’s Christmas Eve and the roast is in the crock pot, cookies are done and tomorrow morning at 9am his plane lands. His last tour, he is home for good and we’ll get to do all the things we had planned for so many years.