Life after loss

AFTER RUSTY HENDRICKS’ LIFE WAS CUT SHORT IN A FREAK ACCIDENT, HIS WIFE AND THREE CHILDREN FACED A GRUELING ROAD BACK FROM DESPAIR. THE GENEROSITY OF FRIENDS AND STRANGERS HAS HELPED FUEL THEIR JOURNEY.

Rusty Hendricks’ funeral drew a standing room only crowd. Guests filled the pews, lined the walls, herded in doorways and shed an ocean of tears. He wasn’t famous, just a kindhearted man who amassed friends during his 36 years.

Rusty died quickly when a jack collapsed while he was working under the family Ford. Rusty’s little girl heard the crash, called out to him and cried for help when he did not respond. His wife and sons came running, but there was nothing they could do to save him. The idea of their helplessness, both then and in the aftermath, accelerated the overwhelming public sadness.

Rusty’s widow Teresa says the day of the service was a blur. “I just remember feeling very scared.”

She and Rusty met as students at Bryan Adams High School, when she was growing up in Old Lake Highlands.

“We were just friends for a long time. We were very different,” she remembers with a smile. “He was a skater, and then a cowboy. I guess he was figuring out who he was. He was quiet, until you got to know him, but always sweet — the kindest person I ever met.”

They started dating after high school, at 19, and Teresa says she knew instantly that she wanted to marry him. It took him a little longer, she says. They broke up for a while, but then one night he left a note on her car. “Call me,” it said.

They married in 1999. Teresa looked forward to building the kind of family she had wanted since her own childhood.

“My mom was a single mom raising me, and I was so grateful to have someone to share my life and a family with,” Teresa says. “So sure he was always going to be there.”

Rusty and Teresa lived modestly. He worked fulltime as a roofing supply salesman. He sometimes offered the kids commission for delivering sales fliers to neighbors. They giggle today about it being a waste of time. He probably fretted about finances, Teresa says, but afterhours, he was always 100-percent present. Teresa was a stay-at-home mom, a role she relished. They saved for family vacations — Port Aransas, Galveston, Colorado. Rusty loved fishing, camping and the outdoors. Most Sundays, they went to church. They had a mortgage and one car, the brokendown one that would end Rusty’s life.

After the accident, Teresa’s overwhelming grief was intensified by the thought of supporting three children on her own. Two sleepless nights after the accident, Teresa finally succumbed to exhaustion on a guest bed at her mother’s house. Hours later, her mom roused her with relieving news.

“I woke up to my mom saying, ‘They are helping you. You are going to be OK!’ And we both just sat there and cried.”

They learned that church members were collecting enough to help Teresa continue house payments, which would buy her time to look for a job.

And classmates from Bryan Adams an-