Posted on 03/07/2005 7:30:53 PM PST by Temple Owl
By John Grogan
Inquirer Columnist
Her name is Millie.
She came into this world 55 years ago, a healthy, chubby baby with a shock of dark hair. Her family loved her then, and despite everything - or perhaps because of it - loves her now even more.
Millie Reynolds has never spoken a word or returned a smile. Her first tentative baby steps would be her last. Just before her first birthday in 1950, she contracted viral meningitis, with sustained fevers that left her profoundly brain-damaged.
The doctors said an institution would be best, but Millie's parents would not listen. They brought their damaged baby home to the Olney section of Philadelphia and lovingly cared for her as she grew, unaware, from a child to an adolescent to an adult.
Today her world is a small bedroom on the second floor of the Cheltenham home of her older brother, Charles Reynolds, and his wife, Susan, who took over Millie's 24/7 care after the parents' deaths. For the last 17 years, the couple have dedicated their lives to her without regret.
"She is our forever baby," Susan Reynolds says, gazing upon Millie lying wide-eyed but unseeing beneath a picture of Jesus. And Millie is.
She requires diapers and total care. Until four years ago, when a feeding tube was surgically inserted as her swallowing reflex weakened, she sucked milk from a bottle and was spoon-fed pureed fruits and vegetables.
A child's face
She is blind, and paralyzed from the neck down. Her hands curl up against her wrists, and her spine over the years has taken the shape of a curving mountain road. She weighs just 80 pounds, and with her soft skin and black hair not showing a strand of gray, she looks almost like a teenager, even a child.
Ask her family whether Millie's life has value or meaning, if the kindest course might not be to simply remove the feeding tube so she can escape the prison of her broken body, and they just smile.
"Millie is a gift," Susan Reynolds, a third-grade teacher, says. "Her life has brought many blessings to our family."
Adds her husband, a furniture salesman: "She has taught us the importance of life."
The couple are devout Catholics, and caring for Millie has cemented their conviction that all life, even one as compromised as this, is precious.
They say Millie has taught them charity, patience and unqualified love. She has shown them what really matters in life. Most important, they say, her continual presence has given their three now-grown children the greatest gift of all - compassion.
Not bad for a human life many would dismiss as better off dead.
In exchange, they give her loving, dignified care. They point out proudly that Millie's doctors are in awe that she has never suffered a single bedsore in 54 years.
Who decides?
The Reynoldses have followed with interest - and dismay - the national uproar over Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged former Huntingdon Valley woman whose feeding tube, a judge ruled last week, could be removed as early as March 18.
What is missing from the debate, they believe, is a simple but fundamental question: Whose right is it, anyway, to decide what constitutes a life worth living? Can any human really make that decision about another?
The Reynoldses believe not.
Despite what some medical ethicists say, they do not see Millie's feeding tube as an artificial means to prolong life but simply as a medical tool to allow her to more comfortably and safely get the sustenance all humans need. Before the tube, she had aspirated food into her lungs, leading to critical bouts of pneumonia.
When Millie's time comes - and she grows weaker each year - they will not order any extraordinary measures to prolong life. But neither will they ever consider steps to shorten it. That decision, they believe, is between Millie and a higher authority.
"Our faith and our love, that's what has guided us," Susan Reynolds says.
As she talks, her forever baby rocks her head from side to side, her tongue out slightly, her sightless gaze far away in that netherworld the rest of us will never comprehend, somewhere between here and forever gone.
Ping
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ping. Thought you'd like to see this and maybe ping your list.
This is LOVE!
Wow, what a loving family. It's great that this woman's big brother and his wife for taking in his sister despite her needing round-the-clock care since infancy. It seems they and their children have been blessed by her presence.
FYI folks...what a light this family is.
FYI folks...what a light this family is.
I think He has.
Gotta read this-what an uplifting story.
The *only* thing she is "owed" is care of an institution able and willing to see to her needs. We live in the real world with consequences, not some socialist utopia. We don't know what his family has gone wanting for, whether his children were well cared for, or anything important to "judge" this fairytale. It's difficult to know if they're truly doing all they could considering her low body weight.
Autism Bump
I think often of the future. I don't want to burden my daughter with the care of my son.
This piece has no credibility. Most stories about caregivers are as realistic as Dr. Suess' Cat-in-the-Hat.
What a special, loving family. May the Lord bless them.
She is getting a lot of love. You can't fault that.
I doubt there is an ounce of fakery or phoniness within this story.
I know it is difficult for some to grasp the infinite love others are capable of, but there you go, we all are moved by different wings.
BTW-the author is a man who first wrote of Terri Schiavo as someone who should be put to death, believing the words of her husband.
And then, he did some documentation work...began to research the court proceedings and affidavits shunned by the Judge (greer) and has come to believe that Terri has a RIGHT to live, to undergo newer therapies, to be with those who LOVE HER. Interesting.
We all suffer from a lack of knowledge. Sometimes it is hard to believe the cruelty people are capable of, and other times, like the article this thread covers, it is hard to believe in the GOODNESS people can exude. We are a complex bunch.
Don't trust those institutions so readily. Usually (though admittedly not always), a close family can provide more attention and devotion. My uncle and his family cared for his sister for many years, and she was an important part of their family. You can't duplicate that in an institution.
Please spread this to everyone on and off of FR:
President of the Florida Senate Tom Lee says he is against HB 701. He needs to be apprised of coverup of crimes against Terri (reference CIG and AHCA case numbers under which the evidence is lodged). He also needs to be apprised of the fact that by his not supporting HB 701 he is saying that you don't need INFORMED CONSENT to off the most vulnerable and disabled by substituted hearsay wishes not their own. If they can't speak, etc. and have been prevented to regain the ability to speak or communicate then the conflicted party will be getting away with murder with the help of the State. Please urge Mr. Lee and his compatriots in the FL Senate to support and pass the companion senate bill to HB 0701. [NOTE: Companion Senate bill is SB 2128.]
Senate President Tom Lee
1-800-560-4403
Florida Senate
1-800-342-1827
Latest Update (later tonight) will be at:
http://tekgnosis.typepad.com
Updated Action / Contact list re: averting a March 18, 2005 1PM Death Sentence for Theresa Maria Schiavo, getting her out of the hands of those trying to murder her, getting her back on the road to her recovery through rehabilitation and therapy and most importantly under the guardianship and care of those who truly love her.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1357549/posts?page=4#4
P.S.
Please come to Capitol building in Tallahassee this Wednesday (03-09-05) by 8:30AM. If the bill dies that day this is all over.
Go to where Health Regulation Committee is meeting. There should be a board with that info. like the airport monitors. Go there.
Get up to speak. Say you support the bill and sit back down.
Let somebody else speak.
We will meet you there.
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