A Unique Gift for a Soldier’s Widow
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Listen to Cantus sing the Letter from Private Givens
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A Unique Gift for a Soldier’s Widow
Listen to Cantus perform the entire song
Watch Boyd Huppert’s Report
Private Jesse Givens of Springfield, Missouri was killed in Iraq three years ago this month. He was trapped inside an M-1 Abrams tank that plunged into a drainage canal.
Five weeks later, a letter Jesse had written before his death was delivered to his wife
Melissa.
“I never thought I’d be writing a letter like this,” Jesse wrote, “I really don’t know where to start. I’ve been getting bad feelings though.”
Jesse addressed not only Melissa in his letter, but his step-son Dakota, age 5, who he nicknamed Toad, and the unborn son he called Bean, who was born four weeks after Jesse died and named, Carson.
“I searched all my life for a dream and I found it in you. I would like to think I made a positive difference in your lives, ” Jesse continues. “Bean I never got to see you. But I know in my heart you are beautiful. I know you will be strong and big hearted like your mom and brother.”
The members of Cantus were moved by Jesse’s words, as were many Americans after the letter was published in the New York Times.
“He is writing it thinking he’s gone already,” says Cantus Artistic Director Erick Lichte. “And this is his last legacy to give to his wife, his stepson and unborn son.”
The letter continues, “I have never been so blessed as the day I met Melissa Dawn Benfield. You are my angel, soul mate, wife, lover and best friend. I am so sorry.”
Spoken, the words have an elegance all their own, but remember Cantus is a choir. Last fall Cantus took the lead in commissioning New York composer Lee Hoiby to put Jesse Givens’ written words to music.
“Here was a voice that was silenced in this war, and we could give that voice back to him,” says Lichte.
Cantus debuted the song to two packed houses in the Twin Cities the weekend of March 11th.
But the choir knew that was just a warm up for a more important audience.
Last month, Cantus flew Melissa Givens to Minneapolis to hear the song she had authorized, but never actually heard. The performance would be private, just the members of the choir and Melissa seated in front of them.
She began by sharing stories about her husband. “He was the most beautiful person on the inside that I have ever met in my life,” she tells the choir.
Melissa goes on to say how Jesse enlisted in the army after September 11th, telling her through his tears as the towers fell that no child should have to grow up without their parents. She struggles with that still, because now Jesse’s kids are growing up without their father.
She tells the choir Jesse’s letter is the most beautiful gift she has ever received. “He’s gone. I miss him everyday, I love him every second, but I know exactly how he feels about me and how he feels about the kids. And that’s made the going 100 times easier I think.”
Some people in the Land of 10,000 Stories will hear the song as an indictment of the war, others as the price of freedom.
But Jesse givens was a private, not a politician – a husband and father outdoing the literary masters in defining the meaning of love.
By Boyd Huppert, KARE 11 News