What is more heartrending than the loss of a child?
You're at home going about your usual routine and suddenly the phone or the doorbell rings and a stranger -- a police officer, perhaps -- gives you the awful news: "Your son's been killed in a car accident."
It's as if the floor has fallen away beneath you or the lights have all gone out.
Your family, friends and neighbors will do all they can to console you, but it'll take weeks, months, years, maybe forever to adjust to the loss of the child you loved.
That night, like many nights to come, you have trouble sleeping. Tossing and turning in bed, you hear the doorbell ring again. You look at the clock on the night table. It's 1 a.m.
Who on earth could be calling at this hour? What bad news awaits me now? How could this day get any worse?
You throw on a robe and slippers and trudge down the stairs to see who's at the door.
It's another stranger. With the chain on, you crack the door just enough to find out who he is.
He says his name is Benito Garza, he's an attorney, and he's heard about your son's accident.
In your grogginess and grief, you wonder, just for a moment, if he's about to make a pitch for his legal services. No, that would be outrageous. After all, it's the middle of the night, just hours since the death of your son. No one could be that crass.
Sure enough, though, that's exactly why he's there.
Benito Garza is the ultimate sleazy lawyer, with no respect for the feelings of a mourner.
Last month, the Corpus Christi attorney appeared in Jim Wells County District Court and pled no contest to a charge of barratry. He received 10 years probation and a $6,000 fine and lost his law license.
Benito Garza got what he deserved. May all lawyers like him get theirs, too.