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 announced an auction to raise enough for a new car. The organizers petitioned auction items from local sports teams. When 2011 Dallas

Cowboys teammates Terrence Newman and Bradie James heard the story, they bought a car, a new Chevrolet Aveo, and had it delivered.

Grinning, Teresa says she had no idea who the players were, but 15-year-old Samuel was a diehard fan. His dad knew and loved the players too.

“I was shocked and surprised, and really glad to have a car,” Samuel says.

“It was surreal,” Teresa says. “I couldn’t comprehend that someone was just buying us a car. I wanted nothing to do with that other car — in the end I donated it — but I certainly didn’t have the money for a new car. That Aveo, it meant everything. We love it. It will be in our family forever, as long as it’s puttering along.”

ESPN radio and TV personality Tim Cowlishaw publicized the fundraising efforts in his Dallas Morning News column.

“We write a lot about the dumb, and sometimes criminal things NFL players do. The good things deserve a mention too,” he wrote of the Cowboys’ gift.

Friends and strangers alike gave generously, Teresa says.

A local businessman, Kenny Johnson, purchased thousands of dollars worth of auction items — an autographed football, a Marc Jacobs purse, tickets to a Rangers game — and gave them to the Hendricks children.

Sara says she still has the purse. She remembers other kindnesses, too.

“I expected my family to help us, but I was really surprised by all the people we didn’t know helping us,” she says. “Like, someone went to the book fair at school and brought us a whole bunch of books.”

When they returned to their house, after two weeks with Teresa’s mom, the refrigerator and pantry was stocked, the children remember.

“Everyday, food would just show up,” Samuel says.

It’s been four years. Thanks in large part to

Makers Connect

those fundraising efforts, the Hendricks family kept their home, located just north of Lake Highlands.

They all chip-in to tackle the things Rusty used to handle. Samuel and Matthew mow the lawn, Teresa learned to make the pumpkin pancakes her husband had perfected (not quite as good as his, she admits) and, last December, she climbed a ladder to her roof and strung holiday lights.

“I am proud that we have learned to do things, but I am sad that we have to,” Teresa says.

Late on a Tuesday night — after a day of classes, band and sports — Sara, now 12, is still wearing her cheerleading uniform, and everyone is eating pizza while discussing Halloween plans.

When the conversation turns to Rusty, Teresa tears up, and soon they all are crying. Sara moves from her seat at the kitchen table to her mom’s lap.

They hired therapists, joined support groups and slowly began to accept and adapt to this new life.

“You don’t ever get over it,” says Matthew, 11, the quietest of the children. “You learn to live with what happened. You don’t have to get over it.”

The children are witty — frequently cracking jokes that leave Mom perplexed. “Right over my head,” Teresa will say. Overly mature for their ages, they speak of futures filled with college, careers, adventures and family.

“I am going to get a full ride to TCU, go to Baylor med school, become a dentist, hire Mom as a receptionist,” Sara says. They all laugh.

Teresa believes loss has made her children more sensitive to others’ struggles. Last summer Samuel went with the church on a mission trip to New York City, one of his many ventures in volunteerism.

Teresa works for a mortgage company and recently bought a new car.

Samuel is learning to drive in the Aveo.

“We already call it his car,” Teresa says.

The family Rusty left behind is, most of the time and all things considered, happy and healthy. Teresa is not sure how they got here. It’s a combination of help from others, faith and grit, she supposes.

“Rusty was my partner and friend. I have loved him for so many years, and it has taken me almost five years to simply accept the life I have been given,” she says.

Though she sometimes still feels slighted, she also is filled with gratitude — for her children, for everyone who has supported her and for the gifts her husband gave her.

“He made me a wife and mother and for that I will always be grateful for his life.”