Michael Hennen
Michael Patrick Hennen died early Monday morning, August 22, 2011 on the McDonald Farm in Sale Creek.
To the many who knew him, Michael was a spirit and a force, unmatched and unmoving: the first to speak his thoughts and mind, his boldest convictions, fearless of your judgment or contempt, but the first to listen when you were speaking yours.
He loved few things more than breaking through a well-crafted false appearance, to help a too-proud facade crumble and collapse, and to reveal, hiding behind it, an honest and beautiful truth, waiting for the courage to express itself. He could see these things, with a clarity that came from unending practice and an unshakeable devotion to the hidden reality of life.
It is too much to describe his wit, and its edge that spared you nothing, and it’s too much to describe how clear were his standards, how furiously he felt them, and how he would fight for them, and yet how easily he could surrender his shoulders to shaking with laughter.
Michael grew up on Lookout Mountain and attended Baylor School and UTC. At the time of his death, he was manager of Hennen’s Restaurant, founded several years earlier by his father. In recent years, they had established a close partnership of hard-working but easy-going hospitality.
Details of the train incident are unclear and unfathomable, but the shock wave is not, and it reaches wide and deep. Next Monday would have been his 28th birthday.
He was predeceased by his grandparents, Frank W. McDonald, Louis J. Hennen and Melba U. Hennen, and aunts, Elizabeth M. Aplin and Jane A. McDonald.
Survivors include his parents, Tim and Corinne Hennen, brother, Jimmy Hennen and sister, Janie Hennen; grandmother, Mimi McDonald; aunts and uncles Frank McDonald, Jimmy Hennen (Diana), Johnny Hennen (Teresa), Denny Hennen, Mike Hennen (Gina) and Mary Helton (Keith).
Services will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 25, at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church. Burial services will be private.
Memorial contributions may be made to the charity of the donor’s choice.
Visit www.heritagefh.com to share words of comfort to the family.
The family will receive friends on Thursday from 10 a.m. until the hour of the services at OLPH Catholic Church.
Arrangements are by Heritage Funeral Home, 7454 E. Brainerd Road.