A Life That Matters (24 page)

My muscles seemed to have lost their capacity to hold me up. I slumped in the backseat of Mikey’s car as we drove toward the hospice, silently but gratefully accepting Bob’s comforting embrace. As always, he was strong when I was at my weakest.

We stopped at the odds-and-ends shop, where we were met by David Gibbs. David was dressed in a business suit and tie, very proper and formal, once an outsider, now part of the family, who
had glimpsed the depth of our pain and did all he could to alleviate it. He suggested we go right away to the hospice, and we walked outside.

Shouts. Screams. Television cameras and microphones thrust into our faces like attack birds. Police surrounded us, pushing away the crowd, but still the questions flew: “How do you feel, Mrs. Schindler?” “Anything to say, Mrs. Schindler?” “Last words for Terri, Mrs. Schindler?” As though I could talk with a voice stifled by tears.

Finally we reached the hospice entrance. Bobby and Suzanne were there, their faces white with grief. Unbelievably we were stopped and searched and made to show our ID. Finally the guards let us through, and we walked toward Terri’s room for the last time. Michael Schiavo’s lawyer Deborah Bushnell was standing at the doorway. I remember thinking she was the devil herself. I didn’t see Michael or George Felos, but the hospice administrator was there, and a lot of nurses, and five or six police officers. Father Pavone was there, too, a welcome presence among the enemy.

We had to sign in again, than started to enter Terri’s room. Bushnell stopped us. “Only the family,” she said, and pointed to my brother. “That guy’s not allowed in there.”

The four of us pushed into the room. Terri was lying on the bed, still as marble.

“The scene was unforgettable,” Suzanne says. “Horrible. Mom throws herself on Terri and is just incoherent, sobbing uncontrollably. There are three policemen in the room—Michael had ordered them to be with us—and one of them tries to pull her away from Terri. Dad’s screaming at them to give us privacy. They’re saying no. Meanwhile, Bobby turns and yells for Mikey to get into the room. And Dad’s shouting, ‘You let Mikey in the room. He’s family!’ They finally let Mikey in, but they wouldn’t let him go near Terri.”

Bob remembers screaming at the police to let Mikey in and give us some privacy. “I told them to get out of the room,” he says, “and they refused. I said, ‘For God’s sake, she’s dead! Do you think we’re going to steal her body? Will you please have the courtesy to give us some privacy?’”

“I told Dad to forget about the policemen,” Bobby continues. “I thought he was going to have a stroke. ‘Tend to Mom,’ I said, and Dad went over to her. And then we all sat there and things quieted down. Everyone kind of got their composure, all except Mom, who was crying—lying on Terri, hugging her, and crying hysterically, not wanting to let go.”

I was holding Terri. Mikey came over and put his arms around me. “You’ve got to get up,” he said. “You’ve got to get up.” And Bob kept saying to my brother, “Leave her alone for a little while. Let her stay there.”

So Mikey let me be for a few precious minutes more. I hugged Terri and told her good-bye. Then Mikey took my arm. I stood up and let him lead me to a chair at the foot of Terri’s bed. The policeman came over and said, “You can’t stay here. You can’t stay here,” and Bob said, “Leave her alone. She wants to sit here for a little while.” The policeman said, “You cannot stay here.” “That’s not fair,” Bob told him. “She has a right to stay here with her daughter.” The policeman said, “I’m sorry. You can’t stay. You have to get up.” That’s when I did get up and went outside in the hallway. Father Pavone was standing there giving Terri last rites. He hadn’t been allowed in her room. For twelve years, Michael had been using Terri to torture us. Even at the end, he didn’t stop.

I don’t remember who ushered us all into a private room, probably someone from the hospice staff. We were alone with David Gibbs and Mikey.

“We never saw Michael,” Suzanne says. “In the whole two weeks Terri’s feeding tube was out, we never saw him. The funny thing about that is that there’s only one road in and out of the hospice. And no one ever knew how he got through all the media, what car he came in. He was like a ghost.”

The problem we faced was how to get out of the hospice without being trampled by the media. They knew by this time that Terri had passed, and, as Suzanne says, “they all wanted a piece of us.” Bobby and Suzanne were strong enough—and angry enough at the way we were treated—to talk to them, but Bob didn’t want to see them, and I was muted by anguish: the idea of the crowds outside filled me with horror.

My belief that God sends you special people when you are most in need was reinforced when in 2004 we were befriended by a group of Franciscans, members of the Franciscan Brothers of Peace out of Minnesota. Brother Paul O’Donnell, their founder, had served as our spokesperson a number of times, holding press conferences for our family. They remained at our side the whole time during and before this current crisis. They did our grocery shopping, cleaned our house, did the wash, and taxied us wherever we wished to go.

David Gibbs contacted them now and arranged to have them drive up to the hospice’s rear entrance in a minivan. All Bob and I wanted to do was go home. Family and friends would be there to console us, and we could finally have the privacy denied us at the hospice.

So we left the room and walked to the side door. The van was waiting. There were news helicopters overhead. I saw police on motorcycles in front of and behind the van, an escort to lead it through the media that blocked the road to the hospice.

Bob’s memory is clearest:

“All I was thinking of at the time was Princess Diana and the paparazzi. We had to go slowly because the Brothers didn’t want to kill anybody. Mary had her head down on my lap, but I kept looking out. There were people running alongside the van with cameras. One guy had a camera with one of those long lenses, and
crack
, it hit the window, and Mary was startled and started to cry. The cameraman was thrown to the ground but got up and started running toward us again. I thought,
What a bunch of lowlifes. At a time like this, they’ll get themselves killed trying to get a picture of a family in agony
.

Eventually the media stopped chasing us—there was nothing, really, for them to hear or see—and we made the few miles home without more trouble. There, our extended family of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews welcomed us with love, and I was able to dry my tears and greet them.

Getting away was harder for Suzanne and Bobby.

“We left by the front door,” Bobby says, “behind four or five policemen who were pushing people out of the way so we could get to the odds-and-ends shop. Let’s put it this way: the media were blocking the sun. There was one big circle of cameras around us, at least a hundred of them, and reporters with microphones and reporters with notebooks, all yelling at us, trying to get our attention.

“We didn’t say anything to anybody. Suzy was holding my shoulders, kind of crouched down, and I was holding on to the cop ahead of me and he was grabbing on to the cop ahead of him, so we were a chain. I had the feeling that if the chain broke, we’d be done for. But at least we reached the shop and were able to duck inside. The police stayed outside to make sure nobody broke down the door.”

“At this point, we all just wanted to go home,” Suzanne continues. “To Mom and Dad’s house. My husband, Michael, drove up to the side of the shop. He had a black truck with tinted windows, and I ducked in next to him on the front seat and put my head down.

“Then, all of a sudden, a dozen cameras were plastered against the windows, including the windshield, and we couldn’t move. I panicked. ‘Drive!’ I yelled to Michael, who was just a few inches away. ‘I can’t!’ he said. ‘They’ve blockaded the truck.’ Oh, it was horrible! I was yelling at Michael, and he was screaming at the people in front of us. I felt like I was going to suffocate. At that point, the police came running over to help. They cleared some people away from the front of the truck, and Michael squealed the tires. The rest of the cameramen jumped back, and Michael drove away as fast as he could, still cursing.

“We drove to my parents’ place. A lot of the family were there. Mom and Dad were walking around in a daze, but at least they were surrounded by people who loved them. It wasn’t exactly peaceful—there were too many people around. Still, there was room for them to breathe. The sight of the hospital room and Terri’s corpse was still in my brain. I hoped they could lose the image, if only for a few hours. Bobby wasn’t there. I wondered what had happened to him.”

“I waited in the odds-and-ends shop for a while,” Bobby explains, “though I’m not sure why. Just wanted to be away from the family, I guess, to be alone with my own sadness. The media crowd around the shop thinned, and after about an hour, I went to get my car to drive to Mom and Dad’s house. One or two people approached me. I thought they wanted an interview, so I said, ‘No. I’m going home.’

“I went back to Mom and Dad’s house around noon. By then, all the relatives had gathered, coming from Orlando, from Corning, from Pennsylvania. They had filled the house with food so Mom didn’t have to shop. My Uncle Ed and Aunt Linda, Uncle Jack and Aunt Betty—Dad’s cousins—were there. They had arrived a few days earlier to see Terri one last time. David Gibbs had called Felos to ask that they be put back on the visitors’ list—Michael had removed their names. ‘They hadn’t come in the past,’ we were told was Michael’s reaction. ‘Why should they be included now?’

“On the drive home, I had heard President Bush’s press conference when he offered condolences for Terri’s death; at the house, I listened to Rush Limbaugh. He must have talked about Terri for two hours, and I remember his closing words: ‘Today, America, we have hit rock bottom.’ I thought so, too, and once more was filled with humility and awe. The president, who is the most powerful man in the world, and Rush Limbaugh, arguably the most powerful voice in radio: united with us, with Terri. It was beyond comprehension.

“I turned off the radio, stretched out on the floor, and fell asleep.”

We knew we had to make a public statement but were not sure how to go about it. Bob called David Gibbs, who suggested we hold a press conference at the hospice at four o’clock. Together with David, who acted as editor, we wrote a statement to be sent to the media across the world:

As you are aware, Terri is now with God and she has been released from all earthly burdens. After these recent years of neglect at the hands of those who were supposed to protect and care for her, she is finally at peace with God for eternity. We are speaking on behalf of our entire family this evening as we share some thoughts and messages to the world regarding our sister and the courageous battle that was waged to save her life from starvation and dehydration.

We have a message for the volunteers that helped our family:

Thank you for all that you’ve done for our family. Thank you to the hundreds of doctors who volunteered to help Terri. Thank you to the fifty doctors who provided statements under oath to help Terri. Thank you to the lawyers who stood for Terri’s life in the courtrooms of our nation. From running our family’s website, to driving us around, to making meals, to serving in so many ways—thank you to all of the volunteers who have been so kind to our family through all of this.

We have a message for the supporters and people praying worldwide:

Please continue to pray that God gives grace to our family as we go through this very difficult time. We know that many of you never had the privilege to personally know our wonderful sister, Terri, but we assure you that you can be proud of this remarkable woman who has captured the attention of the world. Following the example of the Lord Jesus, our family abhors any violence or any threats of violence. Threatening words dishonor our faith, our family, and our sister, Terri. We would ask that those who support our family be completely kind in their words and deeds toward others.

We have a message to the media:

We appreciate your taking Terri’s case to the nation. Please afford our family privacy to grieve at this time. The patience and graciousness of the on-site media here at hospice has been deeply appreciated by our family.

We have a message to the many government officials who tried to help Terri:

Thank you for all that you’ve done. Our family will be forever grateful to all of the outstanding public servants who have tried to save Terri.

We have a message to all of the religious leaders who tried to help Terri:

Thank you to all people of faith who demonstrated love for Terri and strength of conviction to defend the sacredness of all human life as a precious gift from God. Our family is highly honored that the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, would speak out so boldly on behalf of our sister, Terri.

We have a message of forgiveness:

Throughout this ordeal, we are reminded of the words of Jesus on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Our family seeks forgiveness for anything that we have done in standing for Terri’s life that has not demonstrated the love and compassion required of us by our faith.

We have a message to parents worldwide:

Our family would encourage parents to spend time with their children and to cherish each and every moment of each and every day with them as a precious gift from God.

We have a message to Terri from her family:

As a member of our family unable to speak for yourself, you spoke loudly. As a member of our family unable to stand under your own power, you stood with a grace and a dignity that made your family proud. Terri, we love you dearly, but we know that God loves you more than we do. We must accept your untimely death as God’s will.

Terri, your life and legacy will continue to live on, as the nation is now awakened to the plight of thousands of voiceless people with disabilities that were previously unnoticed. Your family intends to stand up for the other “Terri’s” around the nation and we will do all that we can to change the law so that others won’t face the same fate that has befallen you.