By Brenda Erdahl
Brenda Jude of rural Maple Lake wasn’t entirely surprised when her three-year-old grandson, Declan, asked her one day “how can we help Uncle Johnny?” He is an incredibly bright boy for being just three, she said, and he idolizes his uncle.
He couldn’t know that struggle and pain have been a constant companion for Jonathan Jude ever since crashing his snowmobile into a power pole in 2007. Nor could he comprehend the multiple surgeries that followed to try to restore his badly damaged arm or the ensuing hardship as Jude struggles with another medical problem, a pilonidal cyst that has already cost him seven surgeries and thousands of dollars in medical bills.
Declan couldn’t know all that, but what he did know was his uncle was hurting and he wanted to help.
At first Brenda suggested a simple lemonade stand, but that idea has since grown into a full-fledged benefit on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Monticello Community Center where the Jude family hopes to raise money through a silent auction, craft and bake sale and more. The event takes place from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and will also feature food and kids’ activities.
Declan is going to love it, Brenda said.
Brenda is the mother of three children, but it was her youngest son Jonathan who always struggled. It started when he was born two months early. He had special needs throughout his school years in Monticello and as a result saw his fair share of bullying. Despite the struggles, he was a good student and a fine basketball player. In fact, some said he could have had a future in the sport if not for that fateful day in March of 2007 when he hit that power pole his senior year in high school.
For a while his life was an endless series of surgeries and pain medication as the doctors tried to reconstruct his arm that Brenda said had been wrapped around the pole when he crashed. He still can’t raise that arm above the elbow, she said, and he never did get to attend his high school graduation.