December 30, 2007
Happy Birthday Hadrienne!
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November 18, 2007
Two Year Anniversary, November 18, 2007
Hadrienne Kathleen Mendonsa
December 30, 1995-November 19, 2005
this past monday, november 12, 2007, was yet another court date for the young man that killed our daughter. he applied for diversion back at the end of the summer. apparently, you can only apply for diversion if you are a first time offender. the assistant district attorney, who is prosecuting this case, has denied the diversion. this decision is now being appealed. what it will mean if diversion is now granted by the judge is that after this is all over this case will be expunged from this young mans record. it will be like it never existed for him. he will never have to put it on a job application that he was responsible for and convicted of a crime; a crime that killed hadrienne.
the next hearing date will not be until january 28, 2008. this is exactly what happened around this time last year. we were, again sent home with absolutely nothing being done, and this young man gets to enjoy being with his family for yet another thanksgiving and christmas. we are beginning to feel like bill murray in "groundhog day," only without the mystery.
the 18th, the night of her accident, was on a friday night 2 years ago. sunday, the 20th, was the day they took hadrienne off of life support while we held her hand and watched the simulation of life cease. it is odd that today, sunday, november 18th, combines memories for all that took place for both days, starting with the call i received on the apartment phone (where we were living in atlanta with asher while he was going through outpatient therapy at Shepherd) from the officer on the accident site telling me that hadrienne had been in an accident and was on her way to the hospital in an ambulance (it was several hours after receiving that call before i was able to find out any more information about her condition. that news came while i was sitting in traffic on I-75 desperately trying to get back to chattanooga to hadrienne.), through sunday afternoon (20th) the day hadrienne was taken off of life support and in far too many ways we were to.
it is very difficult to be able to explain what it is like for us, now, and calendar dates. so much of our lives revolves around specific dates. dates are road markers in our lives for events: birthdays, anniversaries, holidays (both religious and secular). many of these dates have very profound meanings for us and affect us just as profoundly as we anticipate their arrival as well as the actual celebration of them. Before Asher was injured, we all looked forward to the celebration of the things that most of us look forward to, especially late fall, beginning with Thanksgiving. Following Thanksgiving, for us, the month of December was almost a continuous time of celebration beginning with gloria and my wedding anniversary on the 11th, then asher's birthday on the 22nd, of course Christmas day (which was also one of our dog's birthdays), and finally hadrienne's birthday on the 30th.
Since everything happened for our kids in December, gloria and i decided, when our kids were pretty small, that we would have a mid-year birthday celebration for them. this always happened around June, which was also when my birthday is.
Now, all of the dates that we once looked so forward to celebrating, have all become memorials to the many catastrophic tragedies our family has suffered. It is not, at all, my intention to pass on what we are feeling and going through right now, and even at other times of the year that mark other significant memorial dates. Based on outward appearance, i think that for most people who know us and come into contact with us both frequently and infrequently, we seem pretty much back to our old selves. That is always the problem we face when assessments are made based on outward appearances only. Often gloria and i are asked how we are doing, and the ones who generally ask this are well meaning and truly concerned for us, but i still don't know how to answer this question. any answer i give cannot possibly communicate anything at all relatable to most of those who are asking. many times i am tempted to just respond with: how would you be doing under the same circumstances? This would be a very cruel and unfair response on my part, i know, because there is no possible way for most people to even begin to base a response, if they even could, on anything remotely relatable.
so, what keeps us going on in a life that has become a calendar year of memorials which is compounded by the short leash that those who serve as caregivers wear on behalf of those they serve? any explanation that excluded faith would be shallow and empty at best. hope for a better day, even if that day lies beyond our earthly existence, is something that we must remind ourselves of continuously. that is part of it. for gloria, the flower shop she and her close friend sue wright have opened together, by her own admission, is keeping her sane. for me, it is looking at the greater needs of others, both here in chattanooga, as well as in many other parts of the world. our lives seem to have become one continuous motion of serving others.
and asher, the whole reason this blog was set up, where is he in all of this? i think for the first time, since i first told him that hadrienne had died, he has talked about what the loss of hadrienne has meant to him as her brother. it was the night before the hearing last week. he asked if he could go to the hearing and tell the judge what her death has done to him. after his accident hadrienne became so much of his strength for going forward. there were so many plans they were making for after he was finished with therapy and we all came back to chattanooga. almost everything else had been taken away from asher as a result of his accident, at least, he was able to count on hadrienne, who had always been there for him growing up.
recently, asher said to us in response to something we were talking about, "my life sucks, it is so boring and depressing," and yet his demeanor in expressing this was neither bored nor depressed. it was like he was half joking when he said it, even though we knew he meant it. we knew it was not being said by someone who had given up or had sunk into the depths of feeing sorry for himself, rather he was just stating it as fact, and nothing else. regardless of what was behind it, the words break a parents heart, none-the-less.
very few visitors come to see asher anymore, particularly not those that came so faithfully throughout the time of the unknown. this is understandable and not a reason for hurt feelings or bitterness. many, many new friends have come in and out of asher's life over the past 2 years and no doubt, there will be many more to come. to explain more than this, i am afraid, would be to violate asher's privacy. suffice to say that the complexities of this new life takes more understanding than most people have the time or inclination to pursue, and understandably so.
with thanksgiving coming up, only one more thing comes to mind: "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise–the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased." this reminds me of something that david said when he was about to offer up a sacrifice to god and someone offered to give him the oxen for it. his response was something to the effect of not being willing to offer up a sacrifice to god that cost him nothing (2 samuel 24:24). how much, or many of the daily sacrifices that we offer up to god either in offerings of thanks, or deeds of service, cost us nothing. in this country, based on my own life, the answer would have to be little or nothing. unfortunately, there usually seems to be a built in beneficiary clause with our name on it that is factored in as part of the equation with much of what we give and do, either individually or corporately, on behalf of others.
blessings and thanksgiving,
andy mendonsa
gloria and sue wright's new, flower shop
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May 04, 2007
Asher Gets a Vist From Yellow Bird on Easter
On Easter Sunday our friends bob and sue wright and their son bradford came over for lunch. They brought a special visitor to see Asher, Bradford's pet cockatiel, Yellow Bird. Asher really enjoyed the visit, and apparently so did Yellow Bird. I think there may be a cockatiel on the horizon.
We are all doing well and staying very busy.
blessings and thanksgiving,
andy mendonsa
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December 30, 2006
In Memory of Hadrienne, Today, She Would Have Been 21.
A Favorite Picture of Mine of Hadrienne (it is my desk top background)
Mark Stewart (kneeling), Asher (His first visit since her funeral), Gloria, Putting a Wreath on Hadrienne's Tombstone
Hadrienne's Tombstone (black granite from Africa), Around the Edge is a Quote by Hermann Hesse
The last book Hadrienne was reading, before she was tragically killed by a wreckless driver, was “I dreamed of Africa” by Kuki Gallman. I had found a first edition copy in a used book and comic book store near Decatur, Georgia (near the intersection of North Druid Hills road and Clairmont). For a number of years I tried to get Hadrienne to watch the movie, based on this book, but she had heard that it was too sad and would never watch it.
Unfortunately, I will never know why she decided to read this book at this time. The last time I saw her was in the parking garage of the apartment building where our family was staying on 14th street near Piedmont Park in Atlanta. This was the place we were living while Asher was recovering from the catastrophic injuries he sustained after falling 4 stories inside of an abandoned building on May 23, 2005.
I walked my daughter and her best friend Skye Webb to my daughter’s car, not having the slightest suspicion that, although this would not be the last time I would speak to her, it would be the last time I set eyes on her in a conscious state.
When Hadrienne left Atlanta, returning to Chattanooga, she went with 2 goals in mind. One was to register for the next semester at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she would have been a first semester Sophomore, majoring in Biology, and the other was to find a place to live.
During the week while she was in Chattanooga she stayed with her Grandma Jackson, who had been living next door to us for almost 4 years. Hadrienne’s step-Granddaddy, Dick, had recently entered a nursing home due his suffering from a very advanced case of Parkinson’s disease. He has since passed away.
Grandma Jackson had asked her to consider moving in with her and Hadrienne was considering this and spending this week with her was her way of testing the waters, so to speak.
Some number of days, that might have been weeks, or perhaps, even months, after Hadrienne was killed in an automobile accident, I found the copy I had given her of “I dreamed of Africa” among other things she had brought with her that week to Chattanooga and were still at her Grandmas house.
Maybe I should not have been surprised to find a book mark, indicating to me that she had not only begun to read this book but that she was already on the 13th chapter. From everything I could tell, Hadrienne’s last week on this earth was busy, very busy. So, I was somewhat surprised to find that she had also found the time to read.
Among Hadrienne’s dreams was Africa. A little over 2 weeks before she was supposed to have traveled to Africa with me, but due to my son, Asher’s, critical injuries this trip had to be postponed. As I opened the book to see what page the cellophane wrapper she had place between 2 pages to mark her place, the quote, which she may or may not have read, certainly, definitely, was her heart, and was so quickly fulfilled, but not in any manner that she would have dreamed at that time, and certainly not in a manner that has been bearable for me, for her mother and her brother and many adoring other family and friends.
Chapter 13, “Kuti,” under this title is a poem, or only part of a poem, I can’t tell. It is first written in German, the original language of its author, Hermann Hesse, from a body of published “poems” in 1902. The translation into English for this quote by Hesse appears at the bottom of this page, seemingly as a footnote. A footnote, perhaps, in the context of the larger body of this particular work, but in terms of Hadrienne’s life, and especially in terms of her horribly tragic death, this quote, these 4 brief lines, more accurately, more profoundly than anything I can think or imagine captures and has now even fulfilled all that was the heartbeat of Hadrienne’s mind’s eye, and for what must have seemed a far far distant dream to be realized by her at the time of her life’s end, at the moment of her eternities beginning, where she must have tried to imagine where her home must be, now she knows for certain that is where it was all along, and if nothing else occurs to us by her passing it should be the certainty that is where our home lies as well. And the home that we are all ultimately trying to get to.
“Across the sky the clouds move,
Across the fields, the wind,
…Across the mountains, far away
My home must be.”
Hermann Hesse, Poems (1902)
Blessings and Thanksgiving,
andy
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December 24, 2006
Merry Christmas From the Mendonsas, December 25, 2006
Blessings and Thanksgiving To You All!
Asher with friends mark stewart and josh shupe on his 19th birthday, December 22.
Recent Headshot of Asher
Our Bouncing Bassett, Henry (AKA "The Easter Bassett).
Wishing You A Merry Christmas,
andy mendonsa
| By andym | 11:32 PM | TrackBack (0)
November 18, 2006
We're Still Here, November 17, 2006
To those who continue to pray for us, and even check this blog for updates, i wish to say i am sorry for the much too long gap between the last update and the present. So many of you have been so faithful to both care and pray for us and to also wonder how we are doing, and especially how asher is doing. from time to time as i run into old friends and acquaintances here in chattanooga and the question is asked, more often than not, "have you gotten settled in, are things returning to normal?" The answer to both parts of that question, which are really only one part, always seems awkward to answer. there doesn't really seem to be a completely appropriate or inappropriate answer. the reason being, that no matter what my answer is, i know that for me it always falls short in describing what life is really like for us now, and at the same time i know, and am frustrated by the fact that i know it is completely impossible to convey in words only what first hand experience adequately explains. and the irony is that if there is first hand experience then the questions never get asked in the first place, because the answers are already known.
A friend of ours, who lost her sister several years ago, gave gloria and i a book that was written by her sister's husband, William Hendricks. the book is, "The light that never dies." in the past year and a half we have been given a number of books intended to ease our pain or give us greater insight into our circumstances. This book was different for us, though. what was well understood by the author through the tragic loss of his wife, and mother of their 3 young daughters, was also articulated well and in a way that seemed to resonate with both gloria and myself. near the beginning of the book he quotes an ancient proverb, "it is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart. he then goes on to speak of being in the "house of mourning" after his wife, nancy, had been diagnosed with cancer, but before she died. Even though throughout her illness there was a great outpouring of support from friends, family and members of their church he expresses, "yet affirming that, and grateful beyond words for those God-sent comforters, let me say again: Nancy and I felt very lonely in the House of Mourning. That's just the way it is there. It doesn't matter how many or how few supporters you have around you. Everyone experiences their suffering unique to them. and by oneself. Suffering is an a cappella solo."
That is really what my feeling is when i am asked how we are doing, so i guess that is really my answer as well, but it is an answer and a feeling that largely goes unexpressed. the nearer you are to the epicenter of a crisis or great tragedy, the more acted upon concern, empathy and sympathy there is by others for you. the further away others perceive that you have moved away from this epicenter, because they, themselves have moved away, the less understanding there is for your circumstances. perhaps that is the way it is supposed to be. life is supposed to return to normal. unfortunately, it doesn't, it can't. it may become a new normal, and does, but the perception others have of the distance one actually travels away from the epicenter of tragedy and the reality of that distance are quite dramatically different, and that difference being that those in the House of Mourning continue to be hit by the waves of aftershock that are completely imperceptable to those who live outside of this house. to those who have been drawn into your life at the epicenter of tragedy life does return to normal in that it returns to exactly what it was before this happened. it is hard for this not to happen, and is probably in the realm of the impossible that it wouldn't.
expressing this is not meant as a complaint, it is meant more as an attempt to explain that life will never be as it was for us. i am not certain even that we will ever feel settled again, at least not in the sense of what most of us would think is meant when we say these words. the bubble of the illusion of our life's reality, and the subsequent security we place in this reality, has been burst for us, in what seems like for now, for good. this bubble, that begins to be formed around us at birth, expands over a life time as it is filled up with experiences that, for us, become our own personal realities. and much of what we then depend on for security becomes based on these personal realities that have been formed over time along this lifeway that we have traveled.
once this bubble has been burst you can't be rebubbled into the same personal reality of life. once this lifeway has been roadblocked, there are no detours that will get you back on the same lifeway even though it may appear to others to be the same one that they who are traveling along nearby are on. it is impossible for them to tell that you have actually stopped driving along this lifeway, altogether, and that you have even gotten out of the car and that the reality of temporariness is what has now become your only security. that there could be security in the temporary is a difficult reckoning for sure. it just requires, though, not living with the expectation of certainty in this life, but knowing full well that certainty is reserved for the eternity after. every day then becomes a longing for the eternity after. and to that end, speaking only for myself, i feel that i have more than settled in.
__________________________
ASHER!
asher is amazing. he is brave and strong in ways that have never ceased to amaze me over. i find my own life being challenged by his on an almost daily basis. he, of course, does not have a clue that this is so. such is the relationship between father's and sons. expections for disappointment are generally the rule and not the exception.
Since the last update asher has been through 2 more sessions of out-patient therapy at Siskin. He always really looks forward to this while it is going on, and he also developed great relationships with the therapists that work with him there. right now he is in another break. insurance only pays for a certain number of days over a certain number of weeks at a time, and then, at least, twice that many weeks must pass before he is eligible again. seems like when he isn't in out-patient therapy he is constantly going to the doctor for one thing or another. doctor's and therapy have just become a way of life. a way of life, i might add, that is generally reserved for the much more aged. having my mother living on one side of us and gloria's parents living on the other, it is very strange that asher's health needs, and our care for him, is not too unlike what we had already grown accustomed to in helping to care for our parents. imagine having to face a long life of healthcare needs beginning at such a young age.
May 23rd was the one year anniversary of asher's fall. as that date was getting nearer gloria asked asher how he would like to spend that day. i don't think he hesitated at all before he said he wanted to go to atlanta and visit his therapists that he had at Shepherd spinal center and then go to the new Georgia aquarium. so, that's what we did and it turned out to be a really nice day. mark stewart went with us. he is asher's best friend and he was also hadrienne's boy friend and was driving the car that hadrienne was in when she was killed.
When we got back to Chattanooga in the early evening (it was still light) asher's friends, Josh and Caitlan, had organized a surprise party for asher and a lot of his friends (many of the same ones who were there with asher day and night while he was still in ICU) were there to spend the rest of his anniversary day with him. It really could not have been a nicer surprise, or a nicer way to end the day for that matter.
GLORIA...
every day is a day without Hadrienne. on one of asher's many visits to the doctor gloria met a woman in the reception area who had lost a son, about hadrienne's age, 5 years before. she told gloria that there were some days, now, that she would only think about her son occaisionally, but on other days her son was all that she thought about. i think we both can attest, now, to that being true for us as well.
before asher's accident gloria, and her close friend sue wright, had started a flower arranging business call "Making Arrangements." since we have been back in town gloria and sue have been able to resume some of what they had been doing together before. gloria would rather be working out in her garden around our house or making cut flower arrangements more than anything else that i could ever imagine her doing. and as many of you, who may be gardeners yourself know, gardening can be extremely theraputic.
between taking care of asher and getting to work occaisionally making flower arrangements gloria is busier than any 2 people i know. i think maybe it is very true for both of us that even though being busy is a good and necessary distraction we find that all that we have been through over the last year and a half is still just right below the surface and it really doesn't take very much to bring it to the surface.
i continue to be truly amazed by gloria's strength. even now things that i know that she thinks she cannot endure she always seems to more than endure it (she would have a different opinion than this, though). over the past several months her dad's health has not been very good. he has been in and out of the hospital a number of times. her parents live next door to us and have for about 6 years now. my mother actually lives on the other side of us and she and my step dad moved there about a year after gloria's parents. Both sets of parents moved next door to us so that we could be nearby to help with a number of different health issues that they were both going through at the time. it has always been a great blessing to have our parents so close by. and even though it takes some very creative juggling at times, now, and is not without it's stress, to be able to be there for them when needs come up like they have had in the last couple of months, we could not imagine our lives without them being right where they are.
ANNIVERSARY
It is almost 11:30 pm. at 11:30 on this friday night one year ago i was on my computer in the kitchen of the apartment where we were staying in atlanta. gloria and asher were both asleep. fortunately i was right nest to the phone when it rang so it didn't wake either one of them up. it was a police officer telling me that hadrienne had been in an accident and was on her way to the hospital in an ambulance. the actually date that it happened was the 18th, and even though that be tomorrow it has felt like the anniversary all day today and i have found myself all evening looking at my watch and dreading coming to this hour. i don't know how an anniversary can affect you like it does, but i have lived in a world of memories of that night all day long.
....HADRIENNE
in a rural area outside of kisumu, kenya, there will be a dedication for the widow's prayer center that has been built in hadrienne's memory this weekend. i truly wanted to be there for it, but it is still not possible for me to make that trip. it is so fitting though that a friend, dan webb, who is also the father of hadrienne's best friend, skye, was both able and very willing to go and represent our family there as well as Widows Harvest Ministries (dan is our newest board member).
a few months after hadrienne was killed a fund was also started under the widows ministry to be used to build houses for widows in africa. so far 15 houses have been built through the Hadrienne African Widows Housing Fund. I hope to be able to post some pictures of the actual dedication after dan returns.
here locally in chattanooga another fund has also been established in hadrienne's memory. it is the hadrienne mendonsa memorial fund (www.hkmfund.org). hadrienne was on a rowing team throughout her high school years and after she graduated she and many of her rowing team members organized an alumni rowing association. the members of this association, who were all very close friends of hers, established this memorial fund for:
"Purpose: to honor and remember Hadrienne Kathleen Mendonsa and the impact she had in our lives by establishing a permanent, endowed memorial fund that allows Hadrienne’s friends and family to support causes she cared about:
by improving access and awareness of rowing to people in need.
by supporting research and development for endangered and protected wildlife and their habitats."
Houses built through the hadrienne african widows
housing fund, established under widows harvest ministries.
_________________
The last book hadrienne was reading the week she was killed was "I dreamed of Africa" by kuki gallman. hadrienne, did in fact, dream of going to africa some day. she would have actually fulfilled that dream a year ago in october, had asher's accident not prevented it. at the top of the page on chapter 13, which is where i found her bookmark (a cellophane candy wrapper), was a quote from a poem by herman hesse:
“Across the sky the clouds move,
Across the fields, the wind,
…Across the mountains, far away
My home must be.”
as soon as i read this i showed it to gloria and she immediately had the same compelling thought that i did, that this should be on hadrienne's grave marker along with her own quote. so both quotes have been put on it, and then it wasn't until sometime after we had ordered her grave stone (black granite) that we learned that it had come from africa.
Hadrienne Kathleen Mendonsa
December 30, 1995-November 19, 2005
_________________
we know that so many of you continue to pray for us despite the fact that i have not kept up with posting any updates in such a long time. thank you and bless you all so much. god continues to be very gracious and we are never lacking in the love that he continues to surround us with every day.
blessings and thanksgiving,
andy mendonsa
p.s. i apologize for the missing pictures on some of the past updates. the folks that maintain the blog upgraded the server and many of the pictures got lost. i have reposted some of the but haven't had time to do them all.
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