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

We are all doing well and staying very busy.

blessings and thanksgiving,

andy mendonsa

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

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

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.

Easter was our first day in the house and we had a surprise visit from henry, the easter bassett. i managed to catch a quick snap shot of him before he dashed away to visit other fields of green clover and hide eggs for easter egg hunts later that day.

henry the elusive easter bassett

blessings and thanksgiving,
praying for the peace of jerusalem,

andy mendonsa

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

January 10, 2006 was Asher's last day of out-patient therapy at Shepherd Spinal Center, as well as our last day in Atlanta. Our lease on the apartment we were renting ran out the same day so we headed back to Chattanooga as soon as asher finished all his therapy sessions and he/we went around and said goodbye to everyone (pictures below).

As many of you have probably figured out there have been no recent updates, because we are trying to make the transition(s) now that we are back in Chattanooga. In fact, that is why we did not even announce when we were coming back. We just wanted to arrive back in town unwithout drawing any attention to ourselves. having lived in atlanta for six and a half months, as much as we couldn't wait to get home, we also did not know what to expect as far as what life would look life without being at the hospital all day four and a half days a week. especially since our house is still not ready, and probably won't be ready before the middle of february. so, until then, we are living in a very familiar setting, a hotel.

hopefully, i will be able to give a more detailed update by weeks end. blessings to you all for continuing to keep us in your prayers. truly, i don't know where we would be without them.

the following are pictures of many of those at shepherd that we have grown to dearly love as family. it was so hard saying goodbye that at one point gloria just couldn't take it any more and had to leave and wait for us in the van.

blessings and thanksgiving,
continuing to pray for the peace of jerusalem,

andy mendonsa

My step-dad passed away earlier today. he was a very kind and gentle soul and i will miss him very much. please pray for our family. his funeral will be this wednesday, january 4, 2006, back in chattanooga. we have been back in atlanta since december 26th, finishing up asher's last 2 weeks of physical therapy before we go home for good. i have had a terrible illness for the past few days that i can't seem to shake. pray that we can make the necessary arrangements so that i can be there for the funeral. also, please pray that the rest of my family doesn't come down with with i have.

praying for the peace of jerusalem,

andy mendonsa

Psalm 36:5-10 (NIV)

“5) Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.
6) Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. 7) How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8) They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. 9) For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. 10) Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.”

i could not write an update before now, because i could not bear to write something in place of the pictures i posted of hadrienne soon after she was taken from us. to write anything any sooner than now seemed, felt like, i would be pushing past her, and all that she means to us, aside. it would even feel that way now if i hadn't found a way to keep her memory current with future updates on asher, gloria and myself. that is why, for the time being i will keep a picture of her at the beginning of each update, and why i have had a link created to a "memorial" or "memory" page for her. if there is something anyone would like to post, such as pictures, comments or stories about Hadrienne please send them to my personal email address (amend28209@aol.com) and i will try and post them. if you do send something please put in the subject line "remembering hadrienne."

we came back to atlanta on november 28th so that asher could begin out patient rehab back at the shepherd spinal center. the day that hadrienne was involved in the accident that took her young life, november 18th, was also the day that asher graduated from his brain injury rehab program at "pathways" (part of shepherd's out patient program). asher did really well while he was at there. here he is with all his therapist on his last day there.

after asher finished pathways, the plan was that he would begin out-patient spinal rehab back at shepherd the following monday (november 21). hadrienne had been in chattanooga for a week and she was planning to come back to atlanta with friends on sunday in order to stay with us through christmas. our lives, which were turned upside down on may 23rd when we received the call that asher had been injured, were turned completely inside out when i received the call that hadrienne had been involved in an automoble accident and was being rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

to this day i don't completely know how the police officer that called us that night found our atlanta apartment phone number to call. when i answered the phone there was a lot of interference on the line and i could barely make out what she was saying. finally, heard her ask if i had a daughter named kathleen (hadrienne's middle name). since hadrienne is never called by that name it took a moment to process whether this person had the right number. when i finally said yes, she told me she had been involved in an automobile accident and was on her way to the emergency room by ambulance. when i asked how she was she said she couldn't tell me any more than that and to call the emergency room.

before i hung up my whole body went numbed and it took all i had to stay calm so i could try and figure out what to do. asher and gloria were asleep and i didn't want to wake gloria until i knew something about hadrienne's condition. i must have called the emergency room 4 or 5 times before i finally got a person and then when i did they wouldn't tell me anything. they told me i would just have to come to the hospital to find out about hadrienne even when i told them that i was in atlanta and it would take me 2 hours to get there.

by this point it was all i could do to keep myself together in order to try and think of someone that i could call who would be able to go to the hospital for us and find out how hadrienne's condition while i tried to get there as fast as i could. our dear friends pat and catherine keegan once again came to the rescue. pat is a pediatric doctor at childrens hospital located at erlanger and the night asher was injured i had also called him to see if he could find out what asher's condition was since they would not let us back to see him for several hours.

by this time i had woken gloria up to let her know what was going on and that i was going to have to leave immediately and drive to chattanooga. knowing how long it would take to wake asher up and get him ready to travel i knew that taking he and gloria with me was not an option. yet, leaving gloria behind with no one there to be with her, was as heartbreaking for me as what i was already fearing that hadrienne's condition might be. my heart was being ripped in two between chattanooga and atlanta.

as soon as i got on the road i called another of our dear friends, dave and denise, explained the situation, and asked them if they could drive to atlanta to be with gloria and asher. even though it was 1 a.m. they didn't hesitate to leave imediately. about half way inbetween we met and exchanged vehicles so that they would have our handicapped van to take back with them and bring gloria and asher up later in the morning.

l found out a little later on from pat that hadrienne's condition was critical due to the brain injuries she had suffered. traffic was terrible on I 75 and at one point, for several miles, traffic inched along due to road construction. what is normally an hour and 45 minute drive took me 2 and a half hours. crying and praying all of the way there it was the worst night of my life. i couldn't get to hadrienne and i couldn't be with gloria and asher.

finally, around 3:30 i made it to the hospital and found pat and catherine keegan with hadrienne in the icu. as soon as i saw her my heart was shattered into a million pieces. it was all i could do to keep the rest of me from falling completely apart. i remember finding her hand and holding it as i began to let her know that i was there, pray for her and sing jesus loves me to her; the song that i always sang to her every night when i rocked her to sleep before putting her to bed. my favorite time of the day.

as i prayed for her, told her she would be alright and sang, i saw the numbers on the moniter that were recording her inner cranial pressure drop down not to a safe level, but lower than they had been when i first got there (we unfortunately had learned far too much about brain injury since the time of asher's injuries). the numbers were still high enough that i knew, though, that if the pressure continued at that level she wouldn't make it. over the course of the rest of the morning and into the next day, though, the pressure on her brain never dropped that low again.

at some point, either while driving, or after i got to the hospital, i called gloria and told her that she and asher needed to come as soon as they could get ready and leave. it took a while to get asher ready and to get everything packed in the van that he would need for the trip. they got to the hospital around 7 or 8 that morning.

they came straight to where hadrienne and i were in the icu. we pushed asher beside her bed and put his hand onto hers and as he tried to talk to her he just broke down and cried. he was convinced, though, not thinking that her injuries were anywhere near as bad as his had been, that she would be ok.

at that time i was still hopeful that a miracle would occur and hadrienne would be ok, but i knew that her condition was about as bad as it could possibly be. by the afternoon they were arranging for an arterialgram to be done on hadrienne's brain in order to determine if blood was reaching it. some things had changed for the worse for her during the day. her inner cranial pressure (ICP) had steadily risen up in the 90's. to give you an idea of what tht means, normal pressure is around 12. when asher was first in icu his ICP was in the low to mid 20's. when i first got to hadrienne's room her's was in the mid to high 50's. the lowest it ever dropped while i was there was around 39.

the other indication that things had become worse was that earlier in the day she had some gagging reflex, by the afternoon that was not present at all. what happens when there is swelling on the brain from head trauma is that there is no room in our skulls for the brain to expand. the only place for the swelling to go is through the hole at the back of the cranium where the brainstem attaches to the brain. if the swelling can't be brought under control then the flow of blood trying to reach the brain through the brainstem gets cut off.

by late afternoon, even though we didn't say it to each other, we knew that she was gone. i know that we were both hoping, beyond hope, that the miracle would occur and that when they did the arterialgram later that evening we would receive good news. God, in His infinite wisdom, grace, mercy, love and compassion had other plans.

we were both so grateful to the Lord for the nurses who came into the conference room with us after the doctor broke the news tried to comfort us through both their very presence as well as their prayers. we were also both so grateful to the lord for the wonderful angel that was by our side, especially gloria's throughout the day that day, all night that night and throughout the next day. this angel was susan smission. she did for us all that hadrienne had done for us in those first few days when asher was injured. hadrienne had also continued to be there for us throughout all of asher's stay in the hospital both in chattanooga and atlanta and into his out patient therapy. at the young age of 19, when the dreams and visions of one's life are beginning the process for forming and being shaped into reality, and all of the enthusiam and energy that goes into that process, hadrienne, instead, put all of this on hold, and allowed all of that enthusiam and energy to be devoted to helping her parents and her brother.

after we were told the unbearable news about hadrienne, she was still on life support. we knew that she would have to be taken off, but we needed more time with her before we could do that. asher had been taken to the hotel room where we would be staying for the next week (our house was and is still not liveable. as of last thursday, December 8, there was a 5 week projected completion date for it, though) and he needed for one of us to come and take care of him and also to break the news to him about his sister who he loved more than anything in the world.

gloria stayed with hadrienne throughout the night, and i am so grateful to susan smission for staying there with her. she was in no condition to stay by herself. lurone jennings, my very dear friend and prayer partner for more years now than i can remember, drove me over to the hotel to break the news to asher. asher, who had convinced himself, and was trying very hard to convince those who were staying with him, that hadrienne was going to be alright, was completely broken by the news. he cried and cried and said that he should have been the one that died, he would have given his life for hers and that all the strength and determination that he was able to have in his recovery process had been coming from her. he didn't know how he could possibly go any further now without her.

after a little while i had to leave his side for a few minutes, but lurone was there with him. i am so thankful to the lord for the way that he and lurone were able to share with each other while i was gone. i do not think there could have been a better person to be with asher at that exact time.

the next day i left asher in the great care of dave and denise, who had also been there with him all evening as well as our very dear friend jeff thompson. judy pepper was also there that morning and every morning while we were in chattanooga to help us with everything that asher needs in the mornings. i do not know what we would have done without that help during that time without her, as well as all of those who surrounded us with their love through very practical and necessary ways.

i have no memory of the trip back to the hospital that morning. i just remember finding gloria and susan smission in the room with hadrienne. the only people that we could bring ourselves to let come in during the day to say goodbye were both of hadrienne's grandparents. the rest of the time we needed all to ourselves. we knew she was gone and that what was left behind was only an outward representation of who hadrienne had been. hadrienne was, physically, a very cute and attractive young lady, but her real beauty was in who she was, and that was now gone beyond our reach.

none-the-less, gloria and i are so thankful that we had that time with what physically remained behind of her. it would have been so much more unbearable for us otherwise. we needed to weep, cry and mourn our loss together with her while we held her hand, touched her cheek and stroked her hair.

finally, the time came for us to say our final goodbyes, shed our last tears in her presence and turn off her life support. after everthing was turned off, gloria and i were left alone with her until it finally became too much and we had to leave, broken, shattered and not knowing how we were going to possibly go on without her.

time for me, as i try and remember the details for what happened over the next few minutes, hours and days are blurry at best. so many seemingly important decisions and arrangements had to be made almost as soon as we left hadrienne's side. decisions and plans that i have always wondered how people who are suffering with such deep sadness and grief can possibly have the presence of mind, courage and strength to endure. now i know. without them having to be made and even participated in by us, and only us, they would not have served as the much needed distractions from the pain that was tearing the very essence of our own being into shreds. they forced us to break with our agony.

some time on tuesday afternoon, while sitting on the bed in our hotel room across from gloria who was sitting on the sofa, i was reading through some of the sympathy cards that had been sent to us. i had just read the last one, a handwritten note from a young man whose family had lived near us when he was growing up. his words touched me so deeply and were such a sweet gift to my soul that i laid all the way down on the bed where i was sitting and closed my eyes to rest, just for a moment.

closing my eyes up until that moment had not brought me either peace or rest. in fact, all i could see in my minds eye were dark clouds that would not break for me in order for me to see the light beyond. there was no exception to this when i first closed my eyes this time either. again, dark and ominous swirling clouds was all that i could see. then suddenly at the top of the sky that i was looking at the clouds broke and a great light appeared with a cross inside of a circle. it vanished as quickly as it appeared, and then, i saw hadrienne. she had the most beautiful smile on her face and her head was partially turned to the right and i could tell that she was walking along in the company of someone else, but i could not see who, everything else was obsured from view except for her face. with the obvious joy that filled her face, though, i could well imagine who was walking by her side. then, i noticed something about her that i hadn't at first, she was wearing a golden crown on her head. in another split second she was gone. the dark clouds had obscured her from my view.

i knew instantly what i had seen was real, though, with no doubts left in my mind what-so-ever. afterwards, i open my eyes, got up from the bed and went over and sat next to gloria on the sofa and shared with her what God had allowed me to see. at that moment i felt so much peace inside of me. it wasn't that gloria and i had ever doubted for a moment where hadrienne had gone, but to actually get to see her there was a gift beyond all gifts.

some hours later in the early evening i came here to the Asher update to see if anyone else had posted a comment and was made speechless by one of the comments that i found. it was written by one of the parents of a childhood friend of hadrienne's who had moved away to virginia when they were in middle school. my vision of hadrienne was the answer to what they wrote to share that they were praying for us:

"We have been praying that our Lord will show you a vision of Hadrienne's happiness with Him in heaven to carry you through the times of overwhelming grief. We will continue to lift you up for comfort, for peace, for rest, and for security in the knowledge that He is there for you - always.
With much love in Him -
Miriam, Jim, Mikaela, Aaron & Micah Larson"

even now, as i look back on seeing this vision and then some time later reading about this prayer for us leaves me filled with an indescribable feeling of awe and wonder for the god of all creation who, in our darkest hours, would love us enough to bring so much light to bear through the answer to this prayer. and even now, as i find myself again and again overflowing with tears laden with the sorrow of losing our precious, precious hadrienne, through these tears, i am always able to see the face of her in that vision, a face filled with unspeakable and everlasting joy.

the next day, the day before Thanksgiving, was hadrienne's funeral. the service was held at lookout mountain presbyterian church, because it was large enough and the sanctuary was a place that hadrienne had always found beautiful and drawn to. how gracious of them to allow us and so many others to gather for both remembering her as well as saying our goodbyes.

for that day we are eternally grateful to the lord for lurone jennings, joe novenson, willie and barbara kitchens, susan smission, dr. dave redd, lauren leutwiler, j.r. caines, justin wilkins, catherine shepherd, denise porter, delores domineck, skye webb, kendra sikkema, judy pepper, will ross, asher mendonsa, scotty maclellan, lookout mountain presbyterian church, thankful episcopal church. the lord made himself known through each of you, and so many others too numerous to name, helping to carry us through to the other side of that day.

the rest of the week was spent visiting with friends and family, shedding many tears, finding good fellowship and experiencing gods continued love through it all. a love, that many find it hard to understand or comprehend when weighed against the tragic circumstances that have assaulted our family since may 23rd.
i would not pretend to understand or say that i have found the answers, either. i am certain that most of the questions have not even occurred to me yet. there is one thing i am certain of, though, and that is god's unbreakable, unshakable and impenetrable love for me and my family. i have known and experienced god's love in a very personal way since the end of 1982 when i was first drawn into a relationship with him, and not because of a desperate situation in my life, but because he drew me to himself through his love. and that same love that drew me to him has been unchanging and unwavering every moment of every day since.

what i have found over the years, though, from so many who claim god's love for themselves based on what the bible tells them of it, when pressed as to whether they really know, themselves, that god loves them, more often than not they must admit that they do not. perhaps, that would explain, in part why god gets the blame for so much that he is really not guilty for. perhaps, that is why, all too often, when presented with the unimagineable circumstances that me and my family have been through these many months we begin to question how and why a truly loving god could allow such things as these to happen. when, if we truly knew that god loves us, how could our response at such times as these, and even worse, not be that if it were not for a truly loving and caring god, that we would have far more to worry about than that which can only destroy our physical nature. far worse would be the destruction of our very eternal souls.

in our american culture that we live in today we seem to live our lives as though we should somehow be exempt from suffering, and are even incensed, or at least confused when it does occur. we don't seem to mind as much when it happens to other people in other cultures, just so long as it doesn't happen to us, or anyone else that we are close to. but when it does, then we seem to have a need to find someone to blame. the greater the suffering the greater the one we find to blame. and god seems to ultimately not only be the prime target for where we place that blame, but we also go so far as to curse him in the process.

what seems the more reasonable to me is that rather than ask how a loving god can allow such atrocities and suffering to happen in this would, we should ask instead why it is that evil does not prevail over us altogether. if there is not a loving god holding it back then what else is there,we should ask, holding it back instead? always in the midst of evil, it is the hand of a loving god that will ultimately turn it back. and the greatest evidence, for this, is god's gift to us all of his own son that he sent in order to break the back of evil on this earth and to defeat the hold of death on our eternal beings, but not to deliver us from all suffering while we wait to enter into a promised life of eternal existence with him. in fact, it is even plainly stated for us, that in this life we are joined with christ in all that he suffered on earth. and who of us as parents, knowing in advance, what kind of death our child might suffer, would bring, or send them into the world anyway. what kind of love does to take to do that?

to blame god in the midst of great suffering is to miss god in the midst of the greatest outpouring of his love that he will offer to us in this life.

on november 28th, with our hearts being dragged along behind us we somehow managed to head back to atlanta for asher to begin the last phase of his out-patient therapy at the shepherd spinal center. how could we leave hadrienne behind so soon after we had placed her in the ground with only the memory of her there to be able to return to in our minds? the answer to that is still impossible for me to answer even now.

we found when we returned to shepherd on tuesday, november 29th, that everyone at shepherd that we had gotten to know while asher was in the hospital there, already knew about hadrienne. one of asher's nurses, betsy, had even come to hadrienne's funeral. she was his nurse in the brain injury unit when he first came to shepherd while still in a coma. coming back to shepherd under these circumstances, the love and concern shown to us by everyone there, not only on that day, but every day since, is just another incredible example for the ways that god continues to sustain us even when we can't possibly imagine having an ounce of strength more to go on.

the interesting thing about faith is that it is not always how our faith sustains us at times of great personal suffering, but how the faith of others plays such a crucial role in the ways that we are sustained and at the same time it is because of our suffering that the faith of others is also increased. quite honestly in the midst of all the suffering we have been through, we have not felt as though we have even had any measurable faith to speak of. most of our days and nights we stand weak kneed at best. any strength of faith that has mistakenly been attributed to any of us, i assure you is coming to us only through the grace and mercy of god on behalf of all of the many prayers, pleas and petitions that are going up for us to him from so many both near and far.

our time in atlanta, and shepherd, is now almost over and it seems nearly impossible to believe. asher's last day is december 30th and we will move back to chattanooga as soon after that as possible. our house will not be ready to move into for at least another 2 weeks after that, so we will probably be staying in a hotel until it is finished.

next week though, we will be coming to chattanooga for a short visit. we have promised asher that he can celebrate his 18th birthday with his friends there on the 22nd. we also plan to stay through christmas and return back to atlanta the day after.

let me end this with a quote from a letter found while i was going through some of hadrienne's things. it was a letter she had written to a former high school teacher, but had never sent it to him. i have since mailed it to him. in this letter she tries to convey her appreciation to him for an act of kindness that she saw him demonstrate to another former student and his family. this is part of what she wrote to him:

"Recently, i have become all too aware of intentions turning into choices. Too often my intentions fall into a choice to ignore rather than to act... I saw your intent, to help another, become an action, and whether it helped or not is ok, you are an example. As Jesus showed us we are to love all, no matter the recognition we get, we are to go the extra mile to show love. In this case it was showing up at a time that was particularly hard. For me it could be giving a friend a ride to the store. No matter the situation it is important to show love. Not just to intend to show love.

-Hadrienne"

Praying for the Church, Christ's bride, to be made pure and undefiled,
Praying for the peace of Jerusalem,
Praying for Jesus to return quickly,

as we continue to mourn the loss of our dear Hadrienne,

andy mendonsa

Color Me Hadrienne, 2005
(self-portrait)

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.

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

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