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He was a lieutenant, she was a sergeant
© St. Petersburg Times Gabe and Jenna Venero were lucky, lucky people. They had 20 good years -- more than many people get -- of deep and abiding love. The love was born in the unlikeliest of places, the Tampa police academy. He was a police lieutenant. She was a sergeant in the Marine Patrol. He was teaching a class. She was one of the students. And he knew what he liked. She was even as tall as he was -- over 6 feet. Four days after they met in class, he asked her to marry him. Their 20 years began. Jenna Venero told this story in the middle of one of those emotionally calm moments that interrupted her grief and makes the moment bearable. She laughed. The tears would come again later. Her husband died of inoperable pancreatic cancer last Friday. He was 62. Gabe Venero was once a dominant figure in the Tampa Police Department. He was with the force for 28 years, moving from beat to beat, from street cop to detective, and rising through the cop bureaucracy. His wife rose as well in the Marine Patrol (now the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission). When Gabe and Jenna left their jobs, each held the rank of major. Marriage is a series of tests, and in the best of them, husband and wife face and defeat the challenge together. The worst for Gabe and Jenna Venero came in 1991 when he was forced out of the police department -- all because of a word. In the department he was known for being straightforward, fair-minded, a cop's cop. But next to that one word, his record meant nothing. His crime was to use the n-word when he spoke about a black baseball team that played in the segregated Negro leagues. That one word was deemed a firing offense in the bleak and unforgiving administration of then Mayor Sandy Freedman. I saw Venero weep about this incident. I heard his apologies. Here was no bigot. Gabe Venero never entirely got over the incident. But the loss opened other doors, offered other chances. He and Jenna had a baby, a boy, Alex. For a while, the tough-guy ex-cop got to play stay-at-home dad. Then another door opened. The Spring, Tampa's domestic abuse shelter, hired Venero to run the counseling programs for abusers. He was working there when he got ill. In mid May, he started complaining about stomach pain. He thought it might be an ulcer. Pancreatic cancer always kills. Jenna Venero hoped for three, four months more, just a little more time to add on to their 20 good, good years. And she wanted a little more for Gabe to share time with Alex. She was asking for too much. Gabe spent much of the last four weeks of his life in a hospital room, where friends and co-workers visited to deliver their long goodbyes. He wanted to die there. He didn't think his son, in particular, would be able to live in the house his daddy died in. But Jenna wanted him home. Gabe, in his last moments, seemed to concoct a compromise that would satisfy them both. He wouldn't die in the hospital or in his own bed. They were on their way home, holding hands in the ambulance. He said what he had said so many times, that he loved her. She said how she loved him. The ambulance pulled into the driveway. Gabe managed a look at the house, the trees. Then, Jenna said, he just let go. Two lines of police officers saluted Jenna Venero as the family left church Wednesday. The next stop would be the cemetery. But she was not crying as she stepped out of the church. She was smiling slightly. I can only guess at her thoughts. What else, and who else, could she have been thinking about but Gabe? A good, strong love is like that. In the saddest times, it remains a beacon. -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone Tampa Uncuffed Darrell Fry From the Times Metro desk |
