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November 21, 2005
Hadrienne Mendonsa December 30, 1985-November 19, 2005
Our last day with hadrienne in atlanta before she left to spend the week in chattanooga. mark stewart and josh shup, on the right, were both in the car with her.
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 06:12 PM | Comments (52) | TrackBack
Funeral Arrangements, November 21, 10 AM
May the God of all hope and glory keep you and guide you and so may His love overwhelm you with grace and mercy binging you peace and comfort everlasting.
we will be saying our final goodbyes to hadrienne on wednesday, november 23, at lookout mountain presbyterian church on north bragg avenue on lookout mountain. our family will be there to both receive and give comfort from 11 am to 12 pm. the service will begin at 12 in the sanctuary. we have requested that hadrienne's casket be open in the sanctuary between 11 am and 12 for so many of you that want to say goodbye. she left us so quickly. there will be a graveside service afterwards.
anyone who knew hadrienne knew that she was a very focused and passionate person who always gave all she had to others. from the very moment that we learned of ashers tragic accident she stepped in and held gloria and i up. for all these months we have had to give all of our time and attention to asher. everyone has. which means that she has not been able to get any of that from us. i spoke to her about this one day and told her i realized this and could not imagine how hard it was for her. not once did she ever complain or express any bitterness or jealousy.
since asher has been out of his coma and regained so much of his cognitive abilities he has expressed much anger and disbelief in god. he now tells us since hadrienne is gone his faith and trust in god has been restored. without hadrienne he says that he does not have the strength by himself to go on. it was hadrienne, he said, that had been giving him that strength.
gloria and i have talked about where hadrienne would want donations to be given in her memory. as much as hadrienne loved flowers she would love even more to know that her life could continue on in the helping of others which she did so passionately herself, whether it was family, widows with our ministry, a stranger, it didn't matter, she was willing.
hadrienne never wavered in her desire to be a zoologist and do research work with endangered animals, her great love. every summer since she was 14 she went for a week to wassaw island off the coast of savannah to work with the caretta research project under the savannah science museum. she had such a great love for this work and the the two directors over it mike frick and kris carrol (http://members.aol.com/WassawCRP/index.html) donations can be made out to the
Caretta Research Project
PO Box 9841
Savannah, Ga. 31412-0041.
another great love of hadrienne's was rowing. she was on the chattanooga junior rowing team for all 3 years that she was in high school. it truly transformed her life into the self-confident determined person that she had become before this great tragedy. we know that she would want to make it possible for others to be able to benefit from rowing in the lifelong ways that she did and so we are asking that donations be made to chattanooga junior rowing club scholarship fund:
Chattanooga Rowing - William G. Raoul Boathouse
(423) 622-6846
www.chattrowing.org
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 11286
Chattanooga, TN 37401
and finally, but certainly not least is Ot U' Mofet "a sign and a wonder" in Israel (http://www.restorersofzion.org/restore_mofet.html). hadrienne had a great love for the woman who started this work in israel, orna greenman. orna is a second generation israeli on her mother's side and her father was a holocaust survivor. orna has been the keynote speaker at our annual international widows prayer gathering and conference for the past 4 years. orna, a single mother herself (she has a wonderful teenage son about asher's age, lior) has a growing ministry outreach to young widowed mothers and their children, most of whom are refugees in israel. hadrienne had such a great love for orna that she was intent on going to israel so that she could spend more time with orna.
you can send donations to Ot U' Mofet through Widows Harvest Ministries. We handle all donations for her in the United States. Please make your donations out out widows harvest ministries and enclose a note specifing that they are for orna, or name her organization. 100% of all donations will go to her.
our mailing address is:
widows harvest ministries
po box 2307
chattanooga, tenn 37409
i would ask you to please be generous in your giving to any of these organizations. they can all use, need and depend on charitable giving. please give so that a difference can be made in her name in the lives of others as well as those creatures of god's creation that she was so passionately concerned for. if she were here she would be making that difference in these places herself, but since the lord has decided otherwise please allow her passion's to continue to be fullfilled in her memory.
lord bless you and keep you all. may the god of all creation's name be praised,
in mourning,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 09:55 AM | Comments (25) | TrackBack
November 20, 2005
Our Hearts are Broken, November 20, 7:30 AM
IN ALL THINKGS GIVE THANKS TO OUR HEAVENLY FATHER IN CHRIST JESUS NAME.
as i have broken the news to so many close family and friends, first about hadrienne's critical accident and now about her passing the same words come out from those i tell: "there is nothing else to say."
we loved our daughter so much. we miss her so much and the pain is so great that it is unbearable. there is so much that needs to be done now, and we don't even know where to begin.
we received the news last night after an arteriogram was performed to see if any blood flow was going to hadriennes brain. i already knew, though, there wasn't. we have learned far too much already about brain injury. she is still on life support. gloria spent the night at the hospital last night with her and i stayed in a hotel with asher. he is devastated. he doesn't understand why god has spared him. he cried out to god when i told him last night for why it could't have been him instead and that he would have traded his life for hers, as we all would. but jesus has already done that.
we have cried more than we think is humanly possible and i know we are done. as i left the hospital last night and had to pass by all of hadrienne and asher friends they are all so devastated and hurting beyond measure. please pray for mark and josh who were with hadrienne when the accident occurred. mark is still in the hospital with a broken collar bone and some possible othe injuries. i went to see him yesterday to assure him it was not his fault (he was driving), and that we don't blame him and that we love him. josh was release from the emergency room the same night and sent home with a concussion.
the person driving the care that hit hadrienne is in the same icu unit that hadrienne is in. i would ask you to pray for him and those that were riding in the car with him. i know very few details about the accident, except that i have been told that he appeared to be speeding and lost control of his car when he hit hadrienne, mark and josh.
a conversation i had with hadrienne some months ago after tommy haymes passed away keeps going through my mind. she expressed some half joking and half serious concern to me about wondering whether she might me next. i assured her that she wouldn't. oh dear lord have mercy on us.
i really wanted to post a picture of hadrienne with this but i don't have my computer, it is in atlanta. in fact i don't have any pictures of hadrienne with us at all. we just never dreamed.
i don't know anything yet about funeral arrangements, but as soon as i do i will post them.
thank you all so much for loving us through your prayers.
blessings and thanksgiving,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 07:59 AM | Comments (44) | TrackBack
November 19, 2005
Please continue to pray.
I do not know when Andy will get to post. I do not know what to write but urgently plead for your prayers for her family and friends.
Posted by Leda at 09:58 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
In the Name of Jesus Please Pray, November19, 12:30 AM
i just recieved word my daughter, hadrienne has been in a car accident in chattanooga and is in critical condition at erlanger hospital. please pray. i am on my way there and gloria and asher are staying here. please pray for all of us.
in jesus name,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 12:30 AM | Comments (27) | TrackBack
November 17, 2005
Family Crisis, Stable, November 17, 11:55 PM
thank you all so much for your prayers for my mother and step father. the very next day, the 13th, around 2 PM dick was operated on and his hip was replaced. since then he has not known a great deal of what was going on, but he is continuing to improve. late yesterday afternoon they released him from the hospital and he was transported back to the nursing home where he was only recently moved to live.
with all the emotional stress as well as a lack of sleep my mother is extremely tired. please pray for her to get the rest she needs. i worry that if she doesn't she is going to wind up in the hospital herself.
fortunately, my daughter hadrienne is staying with her for a while and her sister, my aunt catherine, was also able to be with her for several days. dick's granddaughter, shannon and his son jim have been giving my mother some much needed comfort and support as well, especially by relieving her at the hospital. what an incredible blessing they have all been for her. I am so truly grateful. not being able to be there myself has been difficult, but at the same time knowing that she has had such great support has eased much of my own concern for her in this very trying situation.
we are all doing well here in atlanta this week. asher finishes up at Pathways tomorrow, and then next week starting monday, he will be undergoing more outpatient spinal rehab back at the Shepherd spinal center. we don't know yet how long he will be there, but i will let you know as soon as we do. fortunately, where we are living on 14th street is much closer to Shepherd than it was to Pathways. the folks at Pathways have be exceptional, though, and we are all going to really miss them.
our house is under fullblown construction and reconstruction, finally. we are praying very hard that we will be able to be in it for Chirstmas. It is probably going to take another great miracle for that to happen, though. as far as thanksgiving we will all be spending it here in atlanta. it would have been wonderful to be home for this, but that is, obviously, just not possible. please pray that all will go according to plans and schedule for our house to be completed on time (around the 20th). even if that happens it will still mean getting everything cleaned up and moved back in after that date. yet, i know that all things are possible.
contributions have still been coming in on our van. to date the amount we have received has reduced the amount we owe by another $5000, which leaves a blance of a little over $34,000. Thank you Lord.
blessings and thanksgiving to you all,
andy mendonsa
It is amazing what asher can do on a computer with a pencil in his
wrist splint. he also dials a cell phone like this too.
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 11:58 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 12, 2005
More Family Crisis, November 12, 11 PM
i just heard from my mother that my step-dad, dick, fell and broke his hip. she is with him at the hospital and he will probably be operated on tomorrow. it has only been a couple of weeks since dick had to go into a nursing home. his care finally reached the point where my mother was just no longer phsically able to give him the around the clock care that he needed. please pray for her as well as my step dad. she has been exhausted and extremely stressed for months, and our present situation here in atlanta continues to prevent us from being there for them.
Bless you all so much for your continued prayers and concern,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 10:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 08, 2005
Asher's First Trip Back to Chattanooga, November 8, 8 PM
these pictures are of asher's first trip to chattanooga since he was brought to the shepherd spinal center in atlanta on june 27th. asher has been, understandably, wanting to go to chattanooga for months now. he has continued to tell us that his life will not stop seeming like a dream until he does. according to him, now that we have been there, he says it has really helped to take alot of that dream-like quality away.
sorry, to all of those that we did not tell ahead of time that we were coming there. we really wanted to keep asher's first trip back home fairly calm. after we got there, though, word did spread among his friends pretty quickly, but overall i think things went really well for all of us.
on the way into town we stopped to see our 4 dogs at the kennel where they have been staying since the tree fell on our house. i don't know who was the most excited, the dogs or us. one of asher's goals has been for him to be able to pet his favorite dog, henry, since he was not able to do that several months ago when a friend brought henry to shepherd for asher to see him. i was able to get some really good video footage of asher being able to pet henry this time but unfortuantely it didn't really come across in any of the stills i took. asher has really made some amazing progress with his arms, especially his left one. he can actually scratch the top of his own head with it now. he is pretty proud of that feat, too.
after spending quite a bit of time with the dogs, asher wanted to go and see our house and the condition it is in from all the damage that was done to it when the oak tree fell on it back in july. although, the roof over a section of the dormer on the back of the house has been repaired and covered with roofing felt and the addition where asher's new bathroom will be now has framed walls, it still all has a long way to go. the insurance company has still not released the money for us to begin repairing the inside of the house. so, the way it is looking, now, it is going to be almost impossible for us to be back in our home by christmas. asher has said to us, though, many times how much he wants to be able to spend both his birthday (december 22) and christmas in our own home in chattanooga. please pray that this will somehow be possible.
after seeing the house and spending some time with his grandmother (my mother), who lives next door to us, we headed down to the skate park so that asher could see some of his friends that he hasn't seen since he was injured. he also wanted to ride by to see the building where he fell.
asher had a really incredible time visiting with some of his friends. for some reason, though, we got plenty of video footage of their time together, but no stills at all. so, i don't have anything to show from that time. which is really a shame.
some time after dark we headed out to where we were staying for the weekend, which was about 20 miles north of chattanooga. providentially, the week before we were supposed to go to chattanooga a friend of asher's, that he had gone to school with, came to see us with his parents. as it turned out his family has a lake house that is handicapped accessable with a roll in shower and they offered it to us for the weekend. our only other option, and where we had planned to stay, was in a hotel that had a roll in shower. the problem with that was that we were going to have to rent an adjoining room as well so that we would all be able to fit along with all the equipment that we had bring with us. needless to say, this option was going to be very expensive.
the night passed and asher rested really well. he was pretty worn out, though. the next morning we had to get moving pretty early, because i had a board meeting, which was the initial reason for our coming to chattanooga to begin with. by the way, it was a really wonderful board meeting. it was so good, for me personally, to get to see everyone.
after the board meeting we went to see asher's other grandparents for a little while. they actually live on the other side of our house. it was really nice getting to see them. they, as well as my mother, have only been able to come down to atlanta once since we moved asher down here.
when our visit was over we all headed downtown to meet our daughter, hadrienne, who was supposed to row in the "head of the hooch" a regatta that has just been moved from gainesville, georgia (where the olympic rowing competition was held) to chattanooga this year. it is one of the largest rowing competitions now in the country. unfortunately, hadrienne's race was canceled due to rain. we were all pretty disappointed by that. but asher did get to visit with some more of his friends over the course of the rest of the afternoon.
before we left to go back to the lake house where we were staying we made another trip to the skate park and promised to come back by on our way out of town the next day, which we did. it was almost 8 pm before we finally got back to the apartment where we are staying in atlanta (due to heavy traffic and an apparent accident). needless to say we were all completely exhausted by the time we got back.
i don't think any of us were necessarily glad to be back in atlanta, but given the fact that we still don't have a home to go to, we continue to be thankful for the progress asher is making in his outpatient therapies and that he is able to continue on with them while we wait for the work to be completed.
lord bless you all as we realize again again so many answers to your/our prayers.
praying for the peace of jerusalem,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 08:38 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 02, 2005
Asher at Pathways, November 3, 11:00 PM
asher has now been at pathways for outpatient brain injury rehab since October 10th. he is doing well. we had our family and team medical meeting with all of his rehab therapist last week and they have estimated his exit date to be around november 22. it could go a little longer depending on how well he is doing. we have found that as long as you are showing improvement insurance will continue to cover the costs. in this same meeting they also presented us with the possibility that he may be referred back to shepherd's spinal injury outpatient rehab. after he finishes at pathways. if they do this then that will mean that they think they can do more to help asher to be as independent as possible as a quadrapalegic.
the thought of staying longer is really hard on all of us. to date asher has not been to chattanooga since june 27, when we brought him to shepherd in atlanta in an ambulance while he was still in a coma. i don't think he will completely believe that he is not living in a dream until we do take him home. which, incidently, we all are more than ready to move back home. our lives have taken on a certain dreamlike quality themselves.
on a positive note, the longer we are here the better the odds that our house will be finished enough for us to move back into when he does finally get finished with all the rehab he is eligible to receive.
we have moved out of our hotel room and are now living in an apartment. i found out that you can get very short term rental agreements for furnished apartments that are made available, primarily, for business men who have to be in a certain location for 15 days or longer. it is basically the same amount of money to rent an apartment like this as it is to stay in a hotel, so we opted for the apartment, because it provides us with a lot more room, a full kitchen that we can cook in (rather than having to eat out for every meal) and we were able to get furniture moved out in order to make room for asher's hospital bed, wheel chair and lift. in the hotel we were in they were not able to remove any furniture and this barely gave us any room to move around.
having this apartment is truly a blessing. it is located on 14th street about a block and a half away from piedmont park (for those of you that know atlanta). the downside, if you could call it that, is that it is about a 20 minute drive one way to pathways, which is located on Clairmont road in decatur, on the weekends, though, especially on sundays, we can go to the park with asher which makes for really nice outings.
i heard today from our contractor that the walls were being framed up for the addition we are putting on the back of our house for a bathroom for asher. they poured the slab for this at the end of last week, so the rest should come together pretty quickly.
there still has not been an approval by the insurance company to release the money for all of the interior damage to our house to begin to be repaired, replaced and redone. please pray that this happens soon. pray that it all happens soon enough for us to be in our house by christmas. as it is we won't be able to be there for thanksgiving. not being there for christmas is just to hard for any of us to imagine.
thank you all for praying for funds to come in to help us pay for the handicap van we had to buy in order to provide for asher's transportation needs. as i shared in an earlier update the total cost of the van was $45,280.00. as of today, through the kindness of others that has been reduced to $39,578.00. i know there is still a long ways to go, and we are also facing huge expenses with the handicap modifications we are making to our house, but i have to continue to trust that god will make a way under yet more seemingly impossible circumstances and conditions for us to make it over these mountains as well. i have to believe this, especially when i look back and see the mountain range that lies behind us now. and in the case of many of those mountains, i truly did not think that we would ever reach the top, much less make it over them. and yet we did, but we didn't do it alone. god carried us up every one of those mountains, and there is not one single thought in my mind for imagining that we somehow could, or did, climb any of them on our own.
landslides also seem to be a daily occurance, and i am amazed that after the dust settles that we all still seem to be standing upright. sometimes it's like we don't even know that there has been a landslide until after it has already passed. i think that only occurs, though, on the days that we are extraordinarily tired. even on those days when we are the most tired, the most discouraged, it is still possible for me to see so many good things happening for us at the same time. and it is those good and providential things that happen that constantly cause me to question how anyone could ever doubt the existence of god, or how they could miss his presence in the midst of such unbearable circumstances like many of the ones we have been in for the last, almost, six months now. praise god!
continuing to give thanks to god in all things,
and continuing to pray for the peace of jerusalem,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 11:17 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack