THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010072
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 92 lines
At 7 p.m. Sunday, Faith Gutierrez turned off the electric candle that has burned in her front window for six months. Her husband was home. For good.
``I turn it on the day the ship pulls out and I don't turn it off until he gets home,'' Gutierrez said. ``I'm leaving the light on for my love to get back.''
She will not have to light it again. Her Navy husband sailed into his final port of call after 26 years of service.
To mark the special homecoming, Gutierrez decorated telephone poles along Taylor Road, in both directions - since she wasn't sure which way he'd come - with 19 signs, balloons and ribbons.
Lt. Cmdr. David Gutierrez ended his two-year tour as medical officer on the oiler Merrimack, one of several ships due to return home later this month with the George Washington Battle Group. He got to fly home early.
``In the two years he's been on the ship, he's averaged being gone 10 months a year,'' Gutierrez said. ``A six month cruise, a three month cruise or two or three weeks at a time.''
Friday, he called from Italy to say he'd gotten off the ship and was due in at midnight Monday.
Sunday morning at 9:30 the phone rang. From Portugal, he told her he'd be home a day early.
She sent son Benjamin, 13, to church with a neighbor, called her mother and sister and began baking a peach pie.
Gutierrez ran out to her garden and picked squash and zucchini. She set steaks out to thaw and put the snap beans, cabbage and potatoes on the stove to simmer. Then she cleaned.
She dusted the furniture, scrubbed every hand print off the wall and cleaned every rug. Baseboards were scrubbed, curtains washed, starched and rehung. And she then had to set herself down in front of a mirror until she was satisfied that she was presentable.
She eased the tension with a scream.
``I don't have a nerve left. I'm so rattled,'' she said. ``It's like getting ready for your prom, or your wedding - everything has to be spotless, every flower has to be in place - everything has to be exactly right. I'm like a brand new bride all over again.''
Gutierrez wore a new black dress with gold stars across the chest - the closest she could get to stars and stripes.
. She sprayed on perfume her husband had made for her while he was in Egypt on a previous cruise.
``Daddy's coming home, Charity,'' Gutierrez told her 20-year-old daughter, whose blue eyes stare straight out the window.
One night, when stationed in Japan six years ago, Charity stopped breathing. She suffered brain damage and is in a third-stage coma. She can move her arms some and her head. But she doesn't talk.
Soon, she and Benjamin were off to the Norfolk Naval Air Station. ``I feel all tingly and gooey inside,'' she said. ``Every time I see a plane I look for David. I wonder if he could see us flying in. Could he pick out the car?''
His plane had already landed, however, and Gutierrez wanted to get there before he stepped off. ``That'd just ruin it,'' she said. ``I have to be there.''
She spotted him surrounded by her parents, her sister and nephews. She dashed over to join the clan, grabbing him into her arms.
Gutierrez was so tired he didn't know what day it was.
On the way home, Benjamin told his dad about the many movies they have to watch together. ``We better start tonight,'' he suggested.
Dad, however, just wanted to get some sleep.
His wife patted his knee, squeezed his thigh and pointed out her signs along Taylor Road.
He just shook his head.
At the house, David Gutierrez grabbed his bulldog Molly and greeted his neighbors.
``I'll certainly sleep better now that David's home,'' said Barbara Williams. ``Back in January, he saved my husband's life.''
Last January, her husband stopped breathing. He turned gray and had no pulse. ``David came over and did CPR.'' Since then, she said, ``I've had this fear of my husband's heart stopping and David not being next door.''
And his father-in-law is looking forward to long talks. Benjamin wants to go camping. His wife wants to work in the garden - and just be able to reach out and hug him.
Once in the house, David Gutierrez looked at the new piano and then went to the back to say hello to Charity. She was in bed, wearing a red and white stripped T-shirt and blue pants.
He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
``Dad's home,'' he whispered. Her blue eyes stared out the window as he stroked her blond hair and kissed her again. ``I'm back. I'm back.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo appeared on page B1.]
MIKE HEFFNER
The Virginian-Pilot
Lt. Cmdr. David Gutierrez greets his wife, Faith, at Norfolk Naval
Air Station after flying in Sunday - from a six-month deployment to
the Med aboard the oiler Merrimack. by CNB