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March 29, 2006
Almost Home, 12 AM, March 29, 2006
it's hard to believe that our house has gone from what it looked like (above) when the tree fell on it, to the way it looks today. how does one possibly offer or express enough thanks for something like this, to all those that have made this possible, and especially to god.
i think it is finally going it happen, moving back into our home. we really should be able to move our things back in the next 2 weeks, if not sooner. as you can see from the last picture above the outside of the house has been finished except for the gutters. the center dormer is actually the tower that was built to house an elevator for asher to be able to get up to the second floor. the left side of the back of the house is where asher's new bathroom, with a roll in shower, is located.
picture on the right is the entryway into the bathroom that leads from asher's new bedroom downstairs. the picture on the left is the left side of this room.
asher is continuing his rehab at siskin, here in chattanooga. he goes 3 afternoons a week for physical and occupational therapy. he seems to really like his new therapist.
gloria and i, in addition to taking care of asher, which takes a lot of our day and night are also trying to help out with getting our house ready to move into. there have been a lot of decisions that we have been able to be in on now that we are back in town, which has been really helpful and hopefully moved the process along quicker than if we were not.
life in chattanooga, now that we are back, i am not certain how to describe or explain. everything is familiar and mostly the same outside of our lives, and yet almost everything in our lives is not. every day, whether it is in the hotel, traveling around town, going to our house, and especially passing by the cemetary ( which is in the neighborhood where we live) the past sometimes wispers to us and at other times screams so loud that it is impossible to concentrate on anything else. even moving back into our house brings with it a finality of the reality of the unbearable loss of our daughter, hadrienne. i cannot remember a day since we have been back that tears have not been a part of it. especially at night, just before going to sleep, with everything still and quiet the images of loss, beginning with the delivery room where she was born and ending with memories of her after her life support was turned off, play to a voice in my head that tells me that i must do this so that i won't forget a single memory of her. not even a single second of a memory. if i can hold onto them, it is like there is a completeness of her even in her absence. yet, i also know that i can't remember her back. she is beyond all physical reality.
Hadrienne Kathleen Mendonsa
December 30, 1985-November 19, 2005
the first of May, near the town of kisumu, kenya, there will be a dedication service for the Hadrienne Kathleen Mendonsa Widow's Prayer and Ministry Center, which is about 75% complete as i am writing this. in addition 10 widow's homes are also being constructed right now, in this same area, in hadrienne's memory as well.
i had hoped to attend the dedication service, but will have to postpone going there until, at least, late spring or early summer at the earliest.
this is the most recent picture i have received from joshua and abigael atieno, who are over Widow's Harvest Africa, and who are responsible for the design and construction of this Center.
we continue to remain thankful for so many who have helped us to make it through all that we have been through since asher fell. i truly wish that it was possible to name everyone and the many incredible ways we have been helped and encouraged.
i am particularly thankful to god who remains faithful to me and my family even when i don't have the strength, desire or will to be faithful to him. with everything in our lives having been changed in such unbelievably drastic ways in such a relatively short time, it has caused me to realize the only thing that we can count on not changing, now, or for ever, is god. he remains constant and true in fulfilling all that he has promised us.
since hadrienne was killed it has been hard to know what to pray or to even be able to pray at times. it has been hard more often than not to even think about giving thanks. it is so much easier to just think about giving up, especially when the increased degrees of difficulty that life has become never let up. there is no place to run and no place to hide. it is there staring us in the face both when we wake up and when you go to sleep.
we have this idea, and i think it is more of a western idea, especially an idea in this country, that given enough time everything will be alright. the truth is, and i am realizing this more and more, things may not be alright (atleast not until we have broken the bonds of our human condition). things may not get easier (except in the sense that all situations and conditions become relative). we may not ever be able to get used to the hard circumstances that we now live in. we may not even be able to endure them for as long as we might need to just because of our age and the physical conditons that go along with it. that is certainly not something that we are looking forward to, nor are the prospects of this particularly comforting for those around us either. which becomes more and more evident with each day we make it through.
those that we still hear from it is a blessing, indeed. those who continue to pray for us know that it is what is getting us through each day. those who call and leave messages when they can't reach me/us, and express that it is not necessary for me/us to return the call (the same for emails that are sent) a double blessing.
there are many times that i want to return calls, or reply to emails, but just can't, for reasons i can't necessarily justify or explain other than to say that i just can't. and i honestly don't know, in each instance, whether i will be able to or not, because it depends completely on the moment. one thing i have become fairly certain of, though, is that if i don't respond immediately, more times than not i won't respond at all. in this i have been so greatful to so many for your understanding.
over the weeks and months i have thought a lot about faith, my faith/our faith, and particularly about it in the context of the belief that so many have expressed to us, both personally as well in written form, about their perception of our faith being so great based on how we have been able to handle all that we have been through.
i think a good many of those perceptions have to do with the fact that none of us, looking on from the outside, could possibly imagine how we could endure circumstances like the ones that we have had to face over and over since asher's accident. to be perfectly honest, being on the inside, we can't possibly imagine it either. this is something we have not chosen, and therefore, puts it into a different category of faith than the faith that it takes when we choose to do something that from the very outset seems to lie in the realm of impossibility, without the intervention of the divine.
something else that i think is seldom realized about faith, both in facing overwelming circumstances, whether by choice, or by fate, is that faith is generally the outcome of walking through such infernos and not only finding ourselves intact on the other side, but also finding ourselves with a greater trust in god.
to be completely honest, and i do not say this with an ounce of humilty, i have felt very weak and almost completely lacking in the ways that we typically view faith based on our understanding of it in today's culturally faithbased perspective of health, wealth and prosperity for the truly "faithful."
if this is how we look at faith in this culture, and it seems to be more than not, then i think all of us would have to honestly confess that jesus got it wrong. he neither had wealth or prosperity, and even if he did enjoy good health for much of his life, that was put to an end before his life was over. jesus never had a church building, or an office that i know of. he had some funds to work with, but apparently judas was stealing from them.
if nothing else, after all that we have been through, the question continues to over take my thoughts as i find myself being drawn back into the material world, and at a surprisingly quick pace at that, why is it that we hold in such reverence and awe those who abandoned all that they either did have or could have of this world in order to give themselves over to a greater good in the service of their fellow man and woman kind, and yet, at the same time, we aspire to just the opposite? even when we know that history is far more kind, let alone eternity, to the former.
blessings and thanksgiving,
praying for the peace of jerusalem,
andy mendonsa
Posted by Andy Mendonsa at 01:21 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack