Rhonda Evonne’s Story

Rhonda Evonne was born on a beautiful day on December 6. She was 6 lbs

3 oz tiny, beautiful and screaming! She was our first-born child. Rhonda was born

without hearing though we didn’t know this right away. It wasn’t until she was three that

we were told by her pediatrician why she wasn’t talking yet. She was responding but

what we didn’t know is she was responding to different vibrations not voices. It was

heartbreaking news but, nevertheless, we took the bull by the horns and was

determined that she was going to have every opportunity to survive and thrive in the hearing world she was born into.

Rhonda was enrolled in a hearing school and she was integrated into her classes. After a while, we began to notice her frustration so we enrolled her in an all-oral school for the deaf. She thrived at that school and learned how to read lips which we thought was wonderful because the world around her talks! She went to that school until her middle grade because we were transferred out of state to California where she then went to a school that did both sign language and reading lips. She was overjoyed, this is where she met her first child’s father; their relationship lasted another year. Once Rhonda graduated from school, she moved to her own apartment and then enrolled in a community college. Rhonda did well on her own and her father and mother helped her out as much as they could with the baby and any support she needed. Time was given to her by taking the baby for the weekends so she could have time for her enjoyment.

Rhonda met her children’s father and they married; he was hard of hearing as well.

That union produced three more children. He and Rhonda were always arguing back

and forth, eventually, this broke up their marriage. Rhonda was still very attractive so

there was no shortage of men (hearing or nonhearing) noticing her. However, many of

the relationships she ventured into were not kind ones. Some would take advantage of

her lack of hearing and others would stick around as long as she provided for them.

This was very painful for us to see. She would break up and go back, break up and go

back, losing her self-esteem. Rhonda was then introduced to drugs by her husband

who was an addict. Through the years she would go to drug rehab, but it would last for

a short while and then she would go back to using drugs which lead to the point where

she lost custody of her small children and they were taken away from her home.

Rhonda’s parents and sister stepped in to raise the children. Her sister had five

children of her own and she hung in there for a while until she couldn’t anymore,

therefore, leaving the responsibility of caring to her parents. They raised them until each

child reached adulthood.

Rhonda’s kidneys began to fail her so she had to endure dialysis for many years. This

was brought on by the usage of drugs for several years and then COVID came and she

was hospitalized. This was a horrible time because there were visitors allowed in the

hospital. During her hospital stay Rhonda would share with the staff how she missed

her sister Ramona, who passed away in 2014. Rhonda began to refuse to go to dialysis 

and she eventually lost her life because of her decision. Rhonda succumbed on

January 29, 2021.