Terri's mother and sister at Woodside Hospice today (Palm Sunday)
Posted on 03/20/2005 8:26:31 AM PST by amdgmary
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT: 'She was once here. She was once one of us,' said 17-year-old Chelsea Balerno, who attends Archbishop Wood High School, where Terri Schiavo had been a student.
Terri Schindler carried a cascade of white flowers on her wedding day as she drifted down the aisle of Our Lady of Good Counsel, the church she knew so well, and beamed at the first man she ever dated, the first man she ever kissed, the first man who told her he loved her.
His name was Michael Schiavo. He was blond, tall, handsome.
Before a priest and parents, family and friends, they promised to honor each other -- in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.
Until death do they part.
They met in 1982 when Terri was a 19-year-old freshman at Bucks County Community College.
On their first date, Terri's brother stood on the front lawn outside their home in suburban Philadelphia and applauded as the pair left.
On their second date, Terri told her best friend, ``I'm going to marry him.''
Less than two years later, beneath the stained-glass windows of her childhood church, before her bridesmaids in straw hats and burgundy dresses, before her brother and sister and parents, Terri Schindler shone.
This was all she ever wanted.
She wasn't particularly ambitious; she talked about becoming a veterinarian but her grades were only passable during a dozen years of Catholic school. She wasn't particularly outgoing; she grew up chubby, wore thick glasses and shied away from parties.
She found refuge in her home on Red Wing Lane, in a purple and white bedroom where she and her best friend, Diane Meyer, scoured Tiger beat magazine and dreamed of Richard Gere.
That changed in college, when Michael Schiavo took her riding in her gold and black Trans Am and quickly became a fixture in the Schindler family.
They were so close, the newlyweds lived in the Schindler's basement when they couldn't afford to pay rent. So close, they moved to Florida when Bob and Mary Schindler, who owned an industrial equipment company, decided on an early retirement on Florida's Gulf coast in 1986.
Michael and Terri Schiavo could never have known that what seemed such simple wedding vows two years earlier -- words of life together and even death -- would one day polarize a country and a Congress, judges and statesmen, family and friends.
Terri Schiavo, her friends say, would have hated what's happening now.
Hated the bitter feuding between her husband and parents. Hated even more being cast an international symbol in the right-to-die debate when all she wanted was a home, a family, a quiet, contented life.
''You know what Terri would say right now?'' best friend Meyer says. ``She would say, `All this for me?'
``Terri never dreamed of saving the world, whether through her living or through her death. She just wanted to be your common, everyday, happy woman.''
THE SCHOOLS
Terri Schindler grew up in a close-knit Catholic community defined not by neighborhoods, but by parishes.
Until grade school, she lived near the St. Albert the Great parish in northeast Philadelphia, crowded with hoagie joints and duplexes. When her family bought a four-bedroom colonial in an upscale suburb nearby, Terri became a member of the Our Lady of Good Counsel parish.
She walked through grade school hallways in a green plaid jumper, glasses perched on her nose.
Her classmates considered her shy, but those who knew her were instantly smitten. She had a hearty laugh and a gentle nature.
''You wanted to be around her as much as she didn't feel worthy of being around you because of her weight problem,'' says friend Marybeth Stewart, who has known the Schindler family for years.
Terri took horseback riding lessons and could identify dozens of dog breeds. She carried a picture of the family's yellow Labrador, Bucky, on a keychain.
When the dog collapsed in the driveway, Terri performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
She was devasted when he died.
A child of the 1970s, she spent weekends watching Starsky and Hutch and scouring the malls for the perfect pair of Adidas sneakers, the kind with three stripes on the side.
In seventh grade, she fell for a dark-eyed classmate named Vincent. But she never had the nerve to tell him.
Instead, she'd browse bridal shops with Meyer and plan the perfect wedding.
After high school, Terri started losing weight. She wore tube tops and would throw her feet up on the dashboard of her car, singing Beach Boys tunes off-key.
THE SCHOOLS
Meyer got the phone call on a weeknight. It was a jubilant Terri, who whispered, ``His name is Michael.''
Not long after the wedding, Terri and Michael Schiavo followed the Schindlers to Florida.
Terri got a job as an insurance clerk. She died her hair blond, sported a tan and replaced her glasses with contact lenses.
She talked about starting a family.
She never got the chance.
On a winter morning in 1990 -- six years after her wedding -- she collapsed when a chemical imbalance possibly brought on by an eating disorder caused her heart to stop beating. She was 26.
She suffered severe brain damage and has relied on a feeding and hydration tube to keep her alive for the past 15 years.
''This is ripping out their souls, honestly,'' family friend Joe Shannon says of the Schindlers, who have been battling Terri's husband in the courts and Congress to keep Terri, now 41, alive.
Doctors say she is in a vegetative state with no hope of recovery. Michael Schiavo insists she would never want to live this way.
In Philadelphia, friends pray.
''I've been crying all morning, just thinking about her,'' said teacher Jacqueline Litzenberger, who taught Terri in grade school. ``I'm an old lady, but you know, she's so young.''
`ONE OF US'
Teachers from Terri's Archbishop Wood High School pore through her senior yearbook, class of ''81, where the first page reads, ``May your lives be filled with fair winds, smooth seas . . .'' Students at the school hold prayer vigils.
''She was once here. She was once one of us,'' said 17-year-old Chelsea Balerno.
Childhood friend Sue Pickwell simply waits for the phone to ring.
''I keep hoping there's a little angel over her, somebody to save her,'' she says. ``She's the type of person you expect to be saved.''
Says best friend Meyer, now a mother of three, ``I just don't want to say goodbye.''
As questions about politics, religion and morality swirl, friends remember Terri for who she really was: an ordinary woman from Red Wing Lane, with a hearty laugh and a big heart, who, in the end, never got the chance to be ordinary.
Ping
I was curious to see what the English translation of the Italian name Schiavo might be. I was stunned when http://translate.google.com/translate_t returned the word "slave".
She still has a big heart and has more power than any woman on earth. She has been able to gather supporters of life to storm the gates of hell on her behalf. Terri is a perfect human being - not capable of hurting anyone or even insulting any of her enemies. She is perfect. And the evil ones want to kill her. Go figure.
I haven't followed this story at all, but reading the article above, I wonder if maybe her husband was trying to kill her all those years ago. He might be afraid that if she got better, she would be able to tell everyone what really happened and that would explain why he would not want her to have therapy, which I read in another article. I suppose this has been discussed thoroughly, so my apologies if I'm restating the obvious, but it's all new to me.
"She is perfect. And the evil ones want to kill her. Go figure."
I agree! This is a battle between good and evil.
Yes, it's been discussed thoroughly but it never hurts to be reminded that Michael Schiavo is a scheming evil deceiving rat scumbag dirtbag creep from the pits of hell who wants Terri dead more than anything else on earth - more than he wants to marry his girlfriend and be a real father to their children. Many of us believe they are out to destroy evidence (Terri) so they won't have to pay for the abuse, neglect and exploitation they have heeped upon poor Terri since the settlement moolah came pouring in.
>>They were so close, the newlyweds lived in the Schindler's basement when they couldn't afford to pay rent. So close, they moved to Florida when Bob and Mary Schindler, who owned an industrial equipment company, decided on an early retirement on Florida's Gulf coast in 1986.
In other words, Michael had been leeching off the Schindlers for years. But he's the one who gets to call the shots about Terri's care...
And they want to murder this woman. I believe, Mr. A#$@*)# should be throughly investigated as to what actually caused Terri to be in the situation she is currently in.
The woman who is in charge of the hospice and other ones is big into Euthanasia, but I would have to research where that came from.
Where is supposedly billions of dollars awaiting the outcome of this case -- making the precedent for someone to become a legal guardian and drain all the money out of their accounts while giving them the treatment.
And a dose of Euthanasia.
After all, is not Florida a place for people to retire?
Attractive if you like the 1970's-Studio 54-"Cruisin'" type of guy. I'm still wondering if this guy is an angry closet-case - it sounds more and more like it every day.
Terri's mother and sister at Woodside Hospice today (Palm Sunday)
Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon her your heart’s deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her as long as you both shall live?
That's my take on it.
Not to sound dumb but do you mean gay? That would be an interesting scenario; what makes you think that?
Terri's mom and sister (Mary and Suzanne) as they walk into hospice today.
And apparently didn't own a car either.
when Michael Schiavo took her riding in her gold and black Trans Am
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