Denise passed on peacefully last night, May 19th, just before midnight. Her husband and all of her children were able to be with her hours prior.
Information will be posted here in the coming days regarding her memorial service and possible ways to honor her memory in lieu of flowers.
—
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says:
“There, she is gone!”
“Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”
And that is dying…
-Henry Van Dyke
DENISE A HENDRICKS 
Sending great love to all of you.
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Hello To All,
Words are so hard at this time. Know that all of you are in our thoughts now and always.
Live from the Averys.
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So lovely and true – this sentiment applies to Denise as well as the poem you gifted us with on this day.
Denise is forever a part of us and you are as well – It is my hope that we will be in the same village again.
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Godspeed to Denise, and sympathies to everyone else.
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My heart is heavy. I know Denise was well taken care of in her final days….
My love and support for you all in the coming days and weeks is unending.
Please call if I can be any help.
‘People are said to die, but they do not die;
They are only separated from the material body which has served them in the world. The actual person is still alive.’
HH445
Love to you all as you step forward without Denise,
Leesa
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I’m so very sorry for your loss, know the Lucero family is sending love and hugs your way.
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Much love to you all. Denise was an inspiration, as are you all.
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My love to all the Hendricks family, you are in my heart and thoughts. Thank you for posting all you did.
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Still in vigil mode, Hendrickses on mind and heart with love.
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The word ‘vigil’ well- encapsulates this time.
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After church today, I looked at the chapel piano whose keys Denise’s fingers had touched so many times. Each verse presents something new like each new day full of new and wonderful things. The chorus/refrain like the work that we do. The touch on all the pianos she played and how Denise touched each of our lives is a part of her legacy. We love you all and miss her with you.
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So much love to you all.
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A day of great brightness and deep shadows. My heart is full of a precious holy weight, great gratitude to have walked the earth with Denise, to have felt her great love and kindness, to have rejoiced in her songs. Yet when I think of all of you facing your new existence, I am squeezed breathless. ‘To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness’. Sending much love.
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Thinking of you, Steve, and the beautiful family you and Denise created together. Hold each other tightly.
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Thinking of you all. That description is one of the most beautiful descriptions I have ever read. Seems so perfect for Denise! Wishing you all the peace that Denise now has.
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Denise was sweet, painfully shy, opinionated, passionate and stubborn beyond reason. If not being bored is what you value in a relationship, with such a range, Denise did not disappoint. But it’s
two deeper reasons which earned my total devotion. First: her sense of humor could at any point seamlessly trump sweetness, shyness, opinion, passion and being bull-headed. Second: though capable of sarcasm, her sense of humor was profoundly sourced in a view from Higher Truths. Denise could in the midst of a tirade see herself. That is a supremely human capability. She loved the truth more than herself. Over and over I was awestruck by her self-honesty, her laugh at the human condition. She helped me love. I believe her help to all of us, even if anonymous, will continue and deepen from her new perspective. I hear her laughing now.
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*Monkeys can make fun of others, but only human beings can laugh at themselves.
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No matter what I am trying to do, I wake up to myself immobile, thinking about Hendrickses. Thinking about having a relationship with each of them independent of the others; how Denise’s service will be something all my children will attend from their independent relationship with Denise. That is a big social-geometric construction.
Thinking about the Hendricks Household graciousness. Candles always lit on the table, food beautifully prepared and presented; everyone possessed of manners. French? Mennonite? For sure thoughtful consideration of others. Theirs is a cultured home. Deliberate.
In the last couple of months, one of Denise’s repeated topics was how she wanted to see everyone, but only for 5 minutes. She kept saying, “How long does it take to say, ‘I love you. I love that we were in life together. Good-bye.’?” She would sometimes laugh after saying so, sometimes she would be adamant; sometimes wistful. Then she would ask, “Is that ok? Is that ok? There really isn’t anything more to say, but I don’t want to dis anyone.”
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That’s such an Aunt-Denise thing to say! I love that you shared this word-picture of her.
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