Teri Rhodes is scheduled to enter a guilty plea tomorrow at the courthouse. There has been a lot of talk and speculation among the local media as to how severe her sentece would be, considering this is a deal her attorneys made with the District Attorney’s office. To me, it doesn’t really matter how lenient or severe her sentencing is. She killed her newborn. I cannot fathom a single punishment appropriate for her.
I have a younger sister, Melissa. In November 1997, Melissa and her husband David were due any day with their third son. We were going to call him David the Third (we already had nicknames, Cubie, 3D). David lived 14 hours and passed wrapped in the arms of his mother and father. Baby David had meconium poisoning. Now, my sister and her husband have never recovered from the death of their boy. Melissa and David split up, it just hurt too much. Their other children, Ted now 15, Kraig, now 11, and William, now 9 have to live with their parent’s grief.
My family has tried for many years to recover from such a loss. Melissa and David did nothing wrong. They knew she was condidered a high risk due to her Alpha thallassemia (akin to sickle cell anemia for europeans), but my sister’s disease had NOTHING to do with David’s death.
Ted is the only brother to remember his mother being pregnant with David. After they came home without David, Ted stayed at our house for weeks, because as he put it, “Aunt Brandy, my house it too sad”. The other boys only hear stories about the brother they would never meet until heaven.
I wonder if the DA would consider letting Teri and my sister in the same room. No violence (although my opinion, she should be tortured), just Melissa explaining the hole that will never be filled, that it doesn’t get easier as the days go by. My sister will tell her that she can’t even walk thru the second floor at Sears because she’d have to pass thru the infants and children’s section. She would tell her that the accidental death of her son devastated every piece of her life her personal relationships, her professional career, every space of Melissa’s core was fractured by the death of her beloved child. Our family still mourns that beautiful little boy. Melissa would tell her that it is difficult to be in a store with a crying infant. We have been shopping several times, and Melissa would have to leave, just to get away from the pain of hearing a baby.
My brother in law remarried just a few years ago. When David and Carla became pregnant, David spent the entire pregnancy secretly terrified he’d lose another child. Thankfully, they gave birth to a healthy beautiful daughter they named Hailey.
I hope that whatever sentence they order for Teri, that she search her soul for the answer to the question….was it worth it?
