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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.
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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.
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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
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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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