War and Peace
A Short Florida Story
In junior high school, I lived with my mother’s parents in order to attend a better school. Their neighbor showed me a beautiful surprise within the emerald tendrils of her low-hanging fern. A mourning dove had nested right in the middle of her potted plant that hung from a crepe myrtle tree. Each day, I parted the fern leaves to discover the dove roosting on her nest. Amazingly, she allowed me to gently stroke her soft, feathery back. I felt like I could spend forever gazing in serenity at this tranquil picture of comfort and peace.
In the summer of 1998, wildfires ravaged eastern Florida along Interstate 95. The smoke rose and settled over Melbourne and Palm Bay causing many people to experience respiratory distress. At this time, I simultaneously worked fulltime at Rockwell Collins and attended college at UCF. In the day, I assembled airplane parts. At night, I drove north on I-95 to UCF’s Cocoa Beach campus.
As I soldered the circuit boards, I tuned-in to the 90’s grunge rock bands on my Walkman and tuned-out the rest of the world. One morning, my supervisor, Karen waved me over to our section’s telephone. Her brow furrowed in concern. “It’s for you.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Karen shook her head. “I can’t say. You just need to talk to your aunt Dotti.” She handed me the phone.
“Something is wrong with Nonna.” Aunt Dotti spoke slowly on the other line. “She’s in the hospital. You know she’s had this cough for some time. Well, it isn’t the wildfires, it’s lung cancer. The doctor says she only has six weeks to live at the most.”
All the air escaped my lungs. My legs almost gave way. I leaned against a steel pole that reached to the ceiling. “Oh, Lord…uh…what can we do?”
“I don’t know. Just pray. I’m sorry. I know you love Nonna very much.”
After hanging up, I stood there, stunned. Slowly, I returned to my desk and focused on all I could do at that moment—pray and solder circuit boards.
That night, while I tried to sleep in my bed, a wave of grief hit me like a punch in the gut. I curled inward and buried my face into my pillow, wailing for the pain.
Nothing could have prepared me for how much losing Nonna would hurt. She was my gentle grandmother from Italy. A lady of simple elegance with a wealth of wisdom and heart-felt compassion. I could only hope to one day be as loving, as gracious as Nonna. I’d only just met her four years ago. Now I couldn’t let her go.
When I visited Nonna at the hospital, I noticed a book lying on her bed—The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom.
“You can have it,” she said, sliding it to me.
Soft grey curls framed the eyes of someone who was filled with peace. She had no fear of death. This dying grace must have stemmed from her full confidence that her Savior, Jesus, the Good Shepherd would take care of her.
Each Sunday at church, a little more of Nonna faded away. She leaned on Grandpa Ernie as she wheeled her oxygen tank down the aisle to her pew, until she no longer had the strength. From then on, she stayed home on Sundays. For lunch, Grandpa made her soup. She sipped broth while watching her favorite operas on PBS.
When confined to bed, Dad came to visit her everyday and played his guitar while singing her favorite hymns. He brought her wildflowers that he had picked from outside.
Unlike Dad, I felt myself resisting seeing her after she had lost consciousness. When I did visit, hospice kept her comfortable at home with the pain relief of morphine. She didn’t appear to be suffering, but slept soundly in her bed.
Grandpa said, “Try talking to her. Even though she can’t respond, she’ll still hear you.”
“Hi Nonna,” I said and touched her warm hand. She was there, but it was if she was in a deep sleep. Death felt imminent. I feared being there when it happened, so I stopped visiting altogether.
On a dark, cloudy day, six weeks after her diagnosis, Nonna breathed her last breath. I had received the phone call of her passing and entered her room a few hours after she’d died. I took a quick peek at her body, still on the bed. In her hand, she had grasped a wilted wildflower that Dad had given to her. I quickly retreated to the back porch and tried to breathe. I wished I could have visited her more, but I felt too anxious to do so.
As my uncle David stepped out, thunder clapped and rain fell softly for the first time that summer. The cleansing downpour cleared the ever-present smoke of the wildfires. We could finally breathe. Uncle David remarked, “A special person has gone to heaven today.”
In the following weeks, reading The Hiding Place felt strangely comforting. How could a story about suffering in a concentration camp help me? Despite the suffering, Corrie sensed the Lord’s presence with her which gave her comfort and peace.
Grandpa Ernie turned his grief into a blessing by writing the story of his love for his wife in Flowers for Cina. In his book, Grandpa wrote about meeting Nonna during WWII, in Florence, Italy. He was in the army and worked as a cook and medic assistant. He played a portable organ and lead other servicemen in singing hymns to give them comfort and peace amidst the horrors of war.
While walking the streets of Florence, Ernie met Cina’s little brother, Andrea, on his bike. In broken English, Andrea promised him that his mother and big sister Teresa, who everyone called “Cina,” would do laundry for him in exchange for chocolate and stockings. Thus began a friendship with the Cecchini family.
Before Cina fell in love with Ernie, she fell in love with her Savior, Jesus. Ernie had found a protestant Waldensian Church that he’d stumbled across in Florence. The Waldensians were a group of Christians in the early Reformation who were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church at that time for giving away Bibles to the people in their own language. Out of curiosity, Cina had secretly followed Ernie and snuck into the church back pew after he’d left. She listened to the message of God’s grace given through Christ.
After the message, she spoke personally to the pastor, Tullio Vinay and invited him to her home. He shared the gospel with Cina and her parents. The whole family prayed together with Pastor Vinay and put their faith in the grace of God through Jesus Christ, their Savior.
Cina had been classically educated and knew how to speak and read in Latin. She gave an oral recitation in Latin of Dante’s Divine Comedy to earn a scholarship to go to the university. She earned a degree to become a school teacher, but when World War II broke out, she put her career on hold. She fell in love with Ernie and soon they were married.
After the war was over, when Ernie returned to the U.S. with the other servicemen, Cina was scheduled to come later as a war bride. Cina didn’t know that when Ernie had left, she was pregnant. She became very sick after five months. A Jewish obstetrician, who had been hidden from the Nazis during the war, checked her and realized that the baby had died in utero. Cina had to give birth to the baby without Ernie. In her grief, she leaned heavily on Jesus, her Savior and friend. Through letters, Cina and Ernie decided to name the baby Richard, which was my grandpa’s middle name. A few months later, she finally reunited with Ernie in the U.S.
Nonna Cina, along with Grandpa Ernie, showed the love of Christ to me by finding me as a teenager and fully accepting me into their family, even though my parents were never married and had lost touch.
Cina was a Sunday School teacher who liked to keep Doublemint gum in her purse. She offered a piece to any child who looked sad. She would hand them a stick of gum and tell them that salvation through Christ is just like that, a free gift; you just receive it by faith.
Nonna wrote her prayers in a journal. Her words showed me the faith that sustained her, but her actions in life spoke even louder and confirmed her faith was real:
Lord God, is it possible that Your Word will enter all of my heart, all of my soul, and all of my mind? You are my Great Comforter. You give to me rest and peace. I love you Lord, O Jesus, my Savior. To You, I pray for holiness, and humility, to fill me with Your innocence and goodness. To those who are obedient, Your grace is sufficient.
How sweet is Your Word and it is full of Life and wisdom. It brings happiness to my heart, it heals, it sustains me as I carry on, and is bread to my lips.
You are gentle and You are glorious, and You do not want us to have sadness upon sadness. You make it possible for us to see the serenity of the heavens.
In Your Word, You always tell us to be encouraged, and our faith is always strengthened. How wonderful it is to trust in You, O Lord. You have created the heavens and the earth and all that is in the universe. You make us live in the shadow of Your love.
Blessed be the Word of the Lord, the Eternal One, because there is nothing that compares with it. My soul could be filled with all Your Word, because Your Word is the fountain of Life. In this way, it is overwhelming. When I am alone, I am drawn to You. Your Word gives me comfort to my soul. I am aware of the greatness of Your thoughts. You are my God; always present. You will sustain me all the days of my life. Holy Father, I love You.
I want You to search my thoughts and my feelings and also all who are in Your presence. This will give me courage and comfort. This is what will give me significance and affirmation of Your Word. Because of this, I will live in Your Word. Otherwise, my life will go to pieces.
Nature teaches us that if we don’t give water to plants they will no longer have life. Therefore, we must fill them, otherwise they will wither and die. The reason You are with me, is to make complete what is not present in Your Word. At times, I feel I am at a great obstacle. In that moment, all things that are afflicting me, holding me back in this life, begin to come to life again in my mind. They work together to open my heart even more to You alone, Holy Father. It is possible for You to set me free. You are blessed always in the day my heart embraces Your Word and Christ. You are the Word become flesh for me; for all of us. With Great Thanks, With You Always, ~ Cina
There is no greater legacy than to point others to Jesus, our source of comfort and peace in a world of war, suffering, and loss. He is our refuge, the One whom we can seek to calm our restless, hurting hearts. He is our Good Shepherd, who carries us in our deepest pain and uncertainty. In a world gone mad, we can always return to our secret place with Jesus and give Him all our troubles. He knows our frailties and will give us grace in our time of need.
“He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart” (Isaiah 40:11).
More Short Florida Stories: "The Mystery of My History" "The Ocean and the River" "Once Upon a Time" "The Dad Who Wasn't" "My Refuge Stepfather" "Lost and Found" "Of Cars and Cranes"