Q&S Hendriksen - 2012 in Review

Christmas 2012

Our dear family and friends,

                We want to wish you a very merry Christmas, and we hope the joy of the season and the love of our Savior will abide with you in your hearts and in your homes. We also hope for a very happy new year for all of you.

                Since we’re not as good at making it to family events (or any events with friends) as we would like to be, and since this has been such a news-filled year for us, we thought we ought to finally join in the tradition of year-end newsletters to let our loved ones know how (and what) we’re doing.

                Sharisse has been attending school at Weber State University, working toward a degree in math. Upon the joyous return of Summer break this year, Sharisse went to work searching for a new job. Her dedication finally paid off in September when she found an enviable position with the University of Utah Medical Center. She now works part time for them as a ‘floating’ Certified Medical Assistant (working at various locations depending on where she’s needed).

                While Quentin was in Arkansas for a couple weeks for some training for his new job, Sharisse went in for an eye exam. We’re grateful she did. She had been having some problems with the vision in her right eye, and the doctor at the eyeglasses store was able to see why. He told her she needed to see a specialist immediately because she had serious lattice degeneration, causing her retinal detachment. This explained why her peripheral vision had been impaired as of late.

                Less than a week from that first appointment, Sharisse had seen the specialist with her dad, Quentin had returned home (as scheduled) and took her in to LDS Hospital, where the specialist, Dr. Alldredge, performed surgery on both her eyes. The left eye was treated with a laser (receiving cryotherapy) to prevent any possible future retinal detachment. The right eye’s surgery was much more involved. With Sharisse under general anesthesia, the doctor placed a scleral buckle around her eye to reshape the eye to reduce stress on the retina. He also performed a vitrectomy (removal of the vitreous fluid) and a pneumatic retinopexy (an air bubble inserted into the eye in place of the vitreous fluid) to allow the retina to reattach without being pressured by the vitreous fluid.

                Sharisse had complications in that first surgery and has had many complications since that time as well. This has afforded her a total of five surgeries on her right eye thus far. Three of them were under general anesthesia and two of them were in-office procedures.

                Sharisse still has very limited vision in her right eye. She received a contact lens which helps her get as good as 20/80 vision out of that eye, but that still leaves most things very blurry. Her depth perception has proved to be nearly nonexistent, and her vision is limited even more at night. Needless to say, she doesn’t do much driving, and when she needs to go in to work she utilizes public transportation and hitches rides with Quentin when possible. She looks forward to her final (fingers crossed) surgery where she’ll receive a new intraocular lens. Assuming she has no further complications between now and then, this is expected to occur in February.

Since 2009, Quentin has been working with the Utah Army National Guard’s Military Funeral Honors team. In September or October 2011 he became the Ogden team leader, and with his promotion to Sergeant in November (2011), he officially became the non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of the Ogden Military Funeral Honors office.

Just before deploying to Morocco for a few weeks with the 128^th MPAD in April this year for training in support of African Lion 2012, one of two full-time positions for the 23^rd Army Band opened up, and Quentin submitted an application. His experience in Morocco (his second time to the country, since he had deployed there with the 23^rd Army Band for 10 days in 2010) was educational and rewarding. He spent most of his time there in tents on a coastal desert, capturing the training that was occurring between the Marines and the Moroccan military. His unique position as a public affairs sergeant afforded him a lot of opportunity to rub shoulders with high-ranking officials, and he later received a very appreciative letter of praise addressed through his platoon sergeant from the man who was second-highest in command at the Field Training Exercise.

Upon his return from Africa, Quentin boarded (interviewed) for the position with the band and was offered the job. He started May 1^st, becoming the first soldier to move up from Active Duty for Operational Support (ADOS) orders with the Military Funeral Honors team to an Active Guard/Reserve (AGR) position within the Utah National Guard in the 5+ year history of that Honor Guard program.

With Quentin’s new job in West Jordan, we became serious once again about finding our first home to purchase and started working with a real estate agent  in May or June. With Sharisse’s new job in Salt Lake City, it was confirmed that the home would need to be in Salt Lake County or a Southern portion of Davis County. In November we found the home that felt right and that fit what we were looking for and we put an offer in just before Thanksgiving. After receiving a counter offer and responding with our own counter offer, we went under contract the week after Thanksgiving, and the deal closed on the 20^th of December.

Sadly, Sharisse’s Grandma Uhrey, who was very excited for us to find a house, won’t have the opportunity to see the place in this life. Donna Lou Longfellow Uhrey returned to her Father in Heaven after a pleasant Thanksgiving Day with her family and after saying goodnight and goodbye to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Not realizing it at the time, we witnessed the ambulance and fire trucks leaving the station, heading for Sharisse’s parents’ home from where we had just left. Upon arriving home and hearing the news from Sharisse’s brother Torrey (whose basement apartment we’ve been happily renting for the last 4.75 years), the three of us headed back to Mom and Dad’s house to find Grandma being recalled by the paramedics, but not willing or able to return to us.

This Christmas will be a little less bright without Grandma Uhrey, but we still look forward to the opportunity to spend time with family and to celebrate the birth of our Savior, who has made it possible for us to have the opportunity to live with our loved ones in the eternities.

We hope this letter finds all in good health and in good spirits, and we wish for you a very merry Christmas and a very happy new year. May our Father’s love abide in your homes and in your hearts as we celebrate the birth of His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Lots of love,

Quentin & Sharisse Hendriksen

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Waxing Nostalgic

                He looked around the room one last time. All his stuff was out. He was really leaving, and it was finally hitting him. He decided he couldn't leave without taking two pictures with his phone - one from each end of the room.  Then he calmly and quietly locked and closed the door behind him as he slowly walked away.

                This office hadn't been his favorite building to work in of the four he'd been assigned in the course of the job, but it was where his time was spent as the noncommissioned officer in charge and where he was able to, in a small way, make a difference by making sure no appointments were missed, everything was kept clean and orderly, and everything that was to be done was finished correctly and timely. His record wasn't perfect, but he knew the program had been better off because of his dedication to the job.

                On his way out of the building he checked each door he went through, as it closed behind him, to ensure it was secured.  The personnel gate outside was locked, but the vehicle gate had been left open, as it had been just a couple other times during his tenure. He had already turned in his keys, so he only had two options. Rather than climbing over the fence, he took the longer walk through the vehicle gate - out and around to the employee parking lot. He put the few items he was carrying into his car and drove back to the vehicle gate to courteously close and lock it, as a good team member would, covering for his buddy, - one last time.

                He reflected on his time with the job. It had been about two and a half years since he began - starting as a part-timer. The hundreds of funerals he had worked flashed through his mind in a big blur. He thought of the people with whom he had worked, the families of the departed servicemen, the things he had done and learned, and the sacrifices he had made - even torturously missing his grandmother's funeral while he was away at a leaders' course for the job. He waxed nostalgic as he drove home.

                It reminded him of when he had left a schoolhouse back East for the last time not too long ago - the place where he had learned so many things and fell more and more in love with a new field of work and study. The place was filled with memories of so many lessons learned, some weaknesses found, and more success than he would have guessed. The memories were sweet, as the mind tends to block out the negative on its own, and for a moment he decided to simply reflect on what he had accomplished, rather than stressing about what was ahead and all he had to do.

                The job to come would bring much more to learn and much more stress. It would be more complicated simply by the nature of the work. It didn't really matter though. He knew he could do it. He had proved to himself that he could do hard things and take responsibility seriously. The job he was leaving had prepared him for the new one.

                He pondered on the possibility of continuing to work the old job whenever he could. He could devote his newly won weekends to working more funerals. This would allow him to continue wearing the tab on his uniform that he was so proud of. The tab meant a lot to him. He had worked hard for it. It was tempting to prolong the separation from the old job this way, but he realized he couldn't do it. The weekends the new job provided would have to be dedicated to excelling in his new position. There was work to be done, and he couldn't afford to live in the past. The separation had to be clean. He had known this already, but finally realized it and admitted it to himself.

                Besides, he was leaving the office in capable hands. The new NCOIC was present in the infancy of the program and hadn't really ever left since that beginning. Another soldier served as the resident expert on matters pertaining to the geographic area of responsibility and the veterans' groups the team worked with.  The replacement soldier was a good fit for the job too. He could play 'Taps' live, he had been well trained, and he had been the runner up for the new job being taken by the first.

                The program would go on without him, although that wasn't really ever a question. He was just realizing that he'd be able to go on without the program - even if he didn't really want to.

                No, everything would be fine. There were new stresses and challenges ahead. There would be times he'd feel like banging his head against a wall and times he'd wonder, again, what he had gotten himself into, but everything would be fine. It was time to move on - and he realized he was okay with it.

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