Mother recalls disabled daughter's legacy

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - By her own description, Beth Harry had led a charmed life: popular, top of her class, daughter of a successful doctor. Harry expected her foray into motherhood to be much the same.

But when Melanie Teelucksingh was born in September 1975, the baby could not breathe on her own. She did not know how to swallow and her eyes never moved. Her cry sounded "pitiful."

Diagnosis: cerebral palsy.

Nothing had prepared Harry for such a reversal of fortune. This unexpected turn of events was devastating.

"I was never one to worry too much," Harry recalls. "Things had gone wonderfully for me and I expected that to continue. Suddenly I had to let go of the sense that life owed me a string of successes."

Yet, Melanie gave Harry a new definition of success, one that has lasted long after the girl died when she was only 5-˝. Now Harry has self-published a book, "Melanie: Bird With a Broken Wing" (XLibris, $19.99), that recounts the family's struggles and its search for appropriate medical care and educational placement for Melanie. The book is available locally at Books & Books.

This is not a political book that preaches about how society sometimes fails its most vulnerable citizens. Nor does the book catalog therapies available for cerebral palsy patients.

"Quite simply, it's a mother's story," Harry says. "It's about coming to terms with what she meant to me, to us. I feel this huge sense of gratitude that her life proved meaningful for others and that it motivated me to help others."

Prompted by her daughter's condition, Harry, now 64, founded a nonprofit school in 1978 for special-needs children in Trinidad and Tobago, the first of its kind for preschoolers. Its successor, the Immortelle Children's Centre in Port of Spain, now serves as both school and vocational center for 100 students. It is run by the mother of the first pupil who signed up for a play group Harry organized as a precursor to the school.

"Everything that has come since was because of her," says Jacqui Leotaud, the school's principal. "We've always felt it was hers, even after she left."

Harry, who lives in South Miami, Fla., has also become a recognized expert in special education, particularly as it pertains to minority children. As a professor of special education at the University of Miami, she shares her experiences in hopes that her perspective as both mother and educator will broaden students' views.

"Melanie not only brought me a whole new career but also a different a way of looking at things," she adds. "The biggest thing I try to impart to students is respect for parents and a willingness to understand that they have no idea what the parents are going through."

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THE BIRTH

The book opens with Melanie's birth, at a time when Harry was teaching education at the University of the West Indies in her then-husband's homeland of Trinidad. Once the baby was born, though, Harry quit her job and began reading everything she could on cerebral palsy.

"I immersed myself in the subject," she recalls. "But intellectual understanding is one thing, and the ability to understand and feel is another."

In the book, Harry recounts the arduous process of feeding Melanie. It took, on average, one hour to feed the baby two ounces of milk by spoon. Yet, the frustrations and exhaustion that came with this duty brought out a side of Harry that few knew. Her college roommate recounts how Harry "went on a pilgrimage" to improve her daughter's life.

"Those of us who knew her thought she was the least capable to handle this tragedy," says Marcia Barry-Smith, who now lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "But when faced with this monumental situation, she absolutely rose to the occasion."

As Melanie prospered, Harry became more comfortable in her role. She sought medical help for her daughter in Toronto, where she had attended college, and when the family moved to the Canadian city temporarily, she took advantage of the rehab programs there.

"When you saw them together, you had trouble recognizing where Beth ended and Melanie started," Barry-Smith says.

HOSPITAL CARE

But caregiving was never an easy road for Harry. Melanie was in and out of hospitals most of her life. Wanting to do more for her daughter, Harry earned a post-graduate diploma in special education at York University, and when the family returned to Trinidad, she started the school for kids like Melanie. Though the government balked at contributing to the school, Harry secured funding from private donors and various organizations.

"It became her life's work," Barry-Smith says. "It was her tribute to Melanie."

Harry left Trinidad after Melanie's death to pursue her doctorate at Syracuse University. She has returned to the Caribbean island only twice since 1986, most recently in December, when she visited the school. She says she is pleased with the school's expansion _ it had only 40 preschoolers when she opened it _ and the long-awaited help it now receives from the government.

In many respects, the return to Trinidad was bittersweet.

"When Jacqui and I drove up, I thought, 'Wow! Look at this. Look at what Melanie's life created.' We did something useful."

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© 2009, The Miami Herald.