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Michael Schiavo: A refusal to quit in the face of threats, anguish and vitriol.
The Inquirer ^ | Mar. 20, 2005 | Sandy Bauers

Posted on 03/20/2005 6:06:29 PM PST by Former Military Chick

He's been vilified on Web sites and talk shows. He's been called a wife-abuser, an adulterer, a money-grubbing murderer.

Death threats have been left in his mailbox.

Throngs of protesters have waved signs and chanted outside his house in Clearwater, Fla., and they have gathered again.

Sometimes, even Michael Schiavo's friends have wondered why, in the face of all that, he didn't just walk away.

It would have been easier for him to relinquish guardianship of his severely incapacitated wife, Terri, to her parents.

So why not give it up, leave Terri's feeding tube in, let her parents care for her? After all, he is living with another woman now and they have two children.

"Because he's sticking by what he promised," Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said in a recent interview. "He wants to honor the last thing he can give to her."

Physicians have testified that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state and will never improve. Michael Schiavo has said his wife told him she would not want to live like this.

Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, formerly of Huntingdon Valley, say she is responsive and can be helped. They say that, as a Catholic, she would choose life at all costs.

On Friday, Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, which has been in place for all but two brief stretches of time since she collapsed in 1990, was removed. It could be brief this time as well. The House is expected today to consider a Senate bill that would allow Schiavo's parents to take their case to federal court.

Throughout the protracted legal battle, the Schindlers have made their religious views, their personal anguish, and their mistrust of Michael Schiavo a public cause.

Intensely private, according to his family and friends, Michael Schiavo has rarely spoken publicly about the matter, out of respect for his wife's privacy. Through his brother, he declined to be interviewed for this story.

However, in recent days he has gone on national TV to reiterate that Terri would not have wanted to live like this and criticize politicians for getting involved in a deeply personal matter.

His brother and friends also have decided that it's time to speak up. The mudslinging, they said, has become too ugly, too nasty.

"I have a friend who I think has been maligned," said Russ Hyden of Gainesville, Fla.

"We're tired of it. We're done. It's time people know who he is," said Scott Schiavo, who lives in Levittown near where the brothers were raised.

The thing is, even if Michael Schiavo wins the final court battle, and Terri Schiavo's feeding tube is removed, he really hasn't won at all, Scott said.

"He's already lost," he said. "He's already lost Terri."

Social with friends, but reclusive

His brother and friends describe Michael Schiavo as social within his circle of friends, but otherwise almost reclusive. Except for the No Trespassing sign on his front lawn and the armed guards he's occasionally hired to protect his home, he's tried to grasp whatever shreds of normalcy he can.

His friends don't see the demon that protesters who have hurled insults at him do.

Wilma Mackay, a 65-year-old retiree from Palm Harbor, Fla., who watched her husband and brother die of cancer, sees a man who is "the epitome of loyalty."

Bonnie Rowley of Largo, Fla., a friend for about a decade, sees someone who "stands strong on what he believes in, and that is Terri Schiavo. If I needed a health-care advocate, he'd be my first choice. I know he'd be there till the end, and he'd give it one hell of a fight."

Michael Schiavo, 41, was the youngest of five boys. Six-foot-seven, athletic and model-handsome, he met Terri Schindler at Bucks County Community College in 1982.

She had graduated from Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster, he from Woodrow Wilson High School in Bristol Township.

Married two years later, they moved to Florida, where, early on the morning of Feb. 25, 1990, Michael Schiavo has testified, he awoke to the sound of a thud and found Terri on the floor in the hallway, unconscious.

They had been married a little over five years.

He has spent three times as long - the last 15 years - first trying to bring her back, then trying to let her go, his friends and brother say.

In the beginning, they say, Schiavo was relentless in his search for his wife's cure. She underwent various therapies.

He rented a house large enough for him and Terri's parents, who had moved to the area.

He made sure she was dressed every day. He applied her makeup and dabbed on perfume, Rowley said.

He went to school to become a nurse, "because he wanted to take care of Terri," Scott said. "He swore that he could get Terri better... . One doctor said: 'Mike, you know what? There's nothing else we can do. The next time Terri gets sick, why don't you just let nature take its course?' And Mike wouldn't do it."

Death and defining moments

Many of the defining moments of Michael Schiavo's life have revolved around death.

In 1988, his grandmother was hospitalized with a serious illness. She had signed a "do not resuscitate" order, Scott Schiavo said, but when she worsened in the middle of the night, no one looked at her records.

"It took them I don't know how long to get her breathing again. They stuck a ventilator down her throat." To little avail. "She was brain-dead," Scott Schiavo recalled.

All the family could do was wait until medications that kept her heart beating wore off. It took a day and a half, he said.

After the funeral, the family went to the Buck Hotel in Feasterville. Scott and Terri were sitting next to each other at a large table, where the conversation turned to how upset their grandmother would have been at her final hours.

Terri turned to him, Scott Schiavo said, "and she said, 'Not me, no way, I don't want that.' She says, 'If I'm ever like that, oh, don't let me. Pull that tube out of me.' " Scott Schiavo said he testified about the incident in 2000.

Several years after Terri collapsed, Michael Schiavo's mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Eventually, medical complications required the removal of her feeding tube, Scott said. "It's not like we said: 'Turn it off.' "

She was kept "peaceful and out of pain" until she died, Scott said.

Then their father died.

Eventually, Scott said, his brother realized he would have to let Terri go, too.

The Schindlers - who did not respond to a request for an interview made through their lawyer - have been distrustful of his motives partly because, they have said, no one mentioned Terri's wishes until years after her collapse.

But, Scott said, "it's not something you think about while Mike's trying to save her life... . It's something that people do when there's nothing left to do."

This particular fight has not come without a price.

"I give Mike all the credit in the world, because I would have snapped already. I know how bad it hurts me when I hear people talking about him and downing him," Scott Schiavo said.

Most of all, Scott said, "the thing that tears him up is he worries at nighttime, if he's working. He's afraid for the kids and Jodi."

Love and moral dilemmas

Michael Schiavo met his girlfriend, identified in court records as Jodi Centonze, about a decade ago.

Initially, Rowley, who was Centonze's friend, didn't know what to think. The court battles had not yet heated up, but she knew the situation with Terri.

When Rowley met Michael Schiavo, what she noticed first was his "great smile, a gentle smile."

Gradually, her respect grew. "He could have stepped off and divorced Terri five years ago, when this really hit the court. And got married and started his family that way," Rowley said.

The couple has two toddlers - a daughter and a son. Michael Schiavo works in the medical unit of the Pinellas County Jail.

Both Centonze and Michael Schiavo had to face "their own moral dilemmas as far as having children out of wedlock," Rowley said. "But the two of them weren't getting any younger... So does that make him a bad person because he did that? Did he fluff his responsibility to Terri at any point? No."

It is Centonze, Scott Schiavo said, who now does all Terri's laundry. "She's been unbelievable. She supported Mike in everything he did... . She's gone with Mike to visit Terri. She's helped Mike clean Terri up."

Centonze has been a flashpoint for Michael Schiavo's critics who think it is a reason to disqualify him to be Terri's guardian. His living with Centonze "abrogates the covenant of marriage," said Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, who was among the demonstrators outside the hospice on Friday.

Looking back on it now, Scott thinks his brother "just wanted somebody to love him." He equates it with a widower who remarries, "but it doesn't mean that that person stopped loving their spouse that passed on. Mike was very lonely. I mean, he was a 26-year-old kid" when Terri collapsed.

"It's hard to imagine the circumstances he lived under," friend Russ Hyden said. "There was no closure, yet there was no companionship either. That's the worst possible scenario."

Hyden had met Schiavo in 1991. Hyden's pregnant wife had been diagnosed with cancer. A mutual friend thought they "might have something in common. And we did."

But it was more than that they were both going through "life-changing ordeals," Hyden said. "We both liked to play a little golf. We enjoyed each other's company."

Hyden scoffs at the accusations about Schiavo taking the malpractice money awarded to Terri. "If there was so much money, where was that money when I first met Mike? Why wasn't he driving a big car and living in a big home? He was driving a Jeep and living in an apartment."

Hyden's wife lived for almost three more years. He and Schiavo spoke or saw each other several times a week.

"He was always great with my kids," Hyden said. Hyden's daughter was 2, his son 7, and Michael brought them gifts.

"He spent a great deal of time helping me put my family back together," Hyden said. "Perhaps it was because his had fallen so tragically apart."

Sympathy for Terri's parents

In a way, Michael Schiavo has said he can sympathize with Terri's parents. "I have children, and, you know, I couldn't even fathom what it would be like to lose a child," he said in an interview on Nightline last week.

But, he continued, "they know the condition Terri is in. They were there in the beginning. They heard the doctors. They know that Terri's in a persistent vegetative state. They testified to that at the original trial. Fifteen years - you've got to come to grips with it sometime."

He said Terri would "always be a part of my life.

"And to sit here and be called a murderer and an adulterer by people that don't know me, and a governor stepping into my personal, private life, who doesn't know me either? And using his personal gain to win votes, just like the legislators are doing right now, pandering to the religious right, to the people up there, the antiabortion people, standing outside of Tallahassee?

"What kind of government is this? This is a human being. This is not right."

In a way, Michael Schiavo's world still revolves around Terri. He calls every day and visits several times a week, Scott Schiavo said. He can still talk to her, even if she doesn't talk back.

Michael Schiavo yesterday told CNN that he had a "sense of relief" now that the feeding tube had been removed and he promised to "stay by her side" till the end.

"This is her time...," he said. "I will love her and I will hold her hand."

--------------------------

Contact staff writer Sandy Bauers at 610-701-7635 or sbauers@phillynews.com.

* * * * * * * * * *

Congress tries again to stop Schiavo death

Timeline of the Terri Schiavo Case

Recent court rulings and other materials related to the Terri Schiavo case:

5 Wishes a Site that helps one prepare if one is unable to speak for themselves.

Partnership for Caring

Statutory Form of Declaration

* * * * * * * * * *


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: congress; endoflife; michaelschiavo; schiavo; terri; terrischiavo
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To: winner3000
In response to: However, some people have promised him a lot of money if he would just give up Terri to her parents. He could do that and divorce her. If he was money grubbing he would have done it. His actions make absolutely no sense except if he truly believes he's doing Terri a favor.
Perhaps if he were EVIL and STUPID he would take the money and run. However, he MUST be more intelligent than a lot of people making the above argument give him credit. Suppose he were guilty of causing her problem, then NO AMOUNT of money could prevent him from destroying the evidence. If, on the other hand, he is innocent of all wrongdoing (aside from adultery), then taking the money gives the appearance of an admission of guilt and makes him appear to be a money-grubbing jerk. Either way, he cannot take the money--he must see her die.
141 posted on 03/20/2005 6:58:18 PM PST by yevgenie (8 bits in a byte; 2 bits to a quarter ($.25) ==> so, 8 bits is a dollar ???)
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To: Dane

Death row inmate cases get plenty of scrutiny before the state terminates them. I expect the same treatment for Terri. This is a death sentence by the state of Florida. I really don't understand why some can't see this.


142 posted on 03/20/2005 6:58:35 PM PST by VRWC For Truth (Constitution or bust)
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To: Howlin

> You know, it's embarassing to see Freepers calling somebody a murderer with absolutely no proof. <

The vitriol aimed at this guy and his supporters is embarassing. I don't know if he's lying or telling the truth, but the holier-than-thou jackasses have really come out of the woodwork on this. Wasn't there something in the New Testament about requirements for casting the first stone?


143 posted on 03/20/2005 6:58:42 PM PST by jaime1959
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To: LegalEagle61
He wants her dead because he is guilty of abuse or something that caused Terri to be this way in the first place.

You cannot prove that to be the case. The Florida Department of Children and Families (http://www.state.fl.us/cf_web/) (DCF) has begun an investigation of the abuse allegations. Previous investigations have found Michael Schiavo innocent. ([5] (http://www.miami.edu/ethics2/schiavo/wolfson%27s%20report.pdf) PDF Report)

144 posted on 03/20/2005 6:58:42 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (You have a //cuckoo// God given right //Yeeeahrgh!!// to be an //Hello?// atheist)
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To: Former Military Chick

"Because he's sticking by what he promised," Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said in a recent interview. "He wants to honor the last thing he can give to her."

My thoughts: He picks and chooses which promises to keep.

His wedding vows, which he made before God and man, he completely disregards. But he INSISTS on keeping a promise (which he said he made in private and which cannot be proven) which will result in the killing of his disabled wife.

A poor rationalization for his desire to get rid of his wife. IMO


145 posted on 03/20/2005 6:59:38 PM PST by i_dont_chat
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To: muawiyah

When we heard that Anise had come out of the coma--we were sure it was nothing short of a miracle. It defied everything the Doc's had said. THEY said they were thrilled to be proven wrong.

She celbrates the day it happened as her "second" birth.


146 posted on 03/20/2005 7:00:04 PM PST by swordfish71 (There is no storm like the PERFECT ROVIAN STORM!)
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Comment #147 Removed by Moderator

To: Polybius

I did not say you did.


148 posted on 03/20/2005 7:01:20 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Howlin

If he's not lying and hiding something then he would not oppose any attempt to get her to a state where she could live without a feeding tube. Because if she got the therapy and didn't need the tube he could not kill her.

If he's not lying and hiding something he would allow the family access to the body and not insist, against family wishes, to destroy it.

If he's not lying and hiding something he's simply more misunderstood than scott peterson ever claimed he was.


149 posted on 03/20/2005 7:01:27 PM PST by festus (The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now.)
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To: surfatsixty

Please feel free to join the Democratic party. They'd love to have you.


150 posted on 03/20/2005 7:02:52 PM PST by VRWC For Truth (Constitution or bust)
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To: tutstar
Take care of your disabled and elderly if they are in Florida

Any disabled or elderly person living in Florida now knows what could happen to them. If they don't like it they should be looking for a more hospitable home state.

There are a lot of elderly people living in Florida. When they get sick and - God forbid - they linger, they are going to cost the state a lot of money. Any tubes - feeding tubes, breathing tubes, colostomy tubes - will put them at risk immediately. Remember that all you Florida Freepers and those Freepers with parents living in Florida. Don't let them put a tube in, even if they say it is only temporary.

151 posted on 03/20/2005 7:03:08 PM PST by ladyjane
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To: FranklySpeaking

I've read the entire affidavit. Lots of hyperbole contained within. The systematic deletion of the nurse's notes is a bit hard to believe. This person is insinuating a systemwide conspiracy against Terri. If this happened, there had to be many, many witnesses to this behavior. Some corroborative evidence is needed.


152 posted on 03/20/2005 7:03:30 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (You have a //cuckoo// God given right //Yeeeahrgh!!// to be an //Hello?// atheist)
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To: Former Military Chick

Where's the BARF alert?!


153 posted on 03/20/2005 7:03:30 PM PST by tuckrdout (Is prayer your steering wheel, or your spare tire?)
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Comment #154 Removed by Moderator

To: jaime1959
Wasn't there something in the New Testament about requirements for casting the first stone?

Oh, that; that fell by the wayside 3000 threads ago.

155 posted on 03/20/2005 7:04:37 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Windsong

No he isn't "full of it" Michael Schiavo has two children out of wedlock with his girlfriend/fiancee Jody Centonze.

He stated in 1997 that he was engaged to her and that he would marry her after Terri Schiavo's death.

If that isn't "Cheating", I'd love to know what is.


156 posted on 03/20/2005 7:04:42 PM PST by swordfish71 (There is no storm like the PERFECT ROVIAN STORM!)
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To: Former Military Chick
Jodi wasn't the first girl he started dating after the "accident". People seem to forget that. He dated another girl for a year and then stalked her for almost a year after that. All before he shacked up with Jodi only five years after Terri's unfortunate collapse.

No one in good conscience can forget the bone scan; the one he hid from her parents for 10 years and when they asked the judge for answers they were dismissed. No investigation. WHY??

The promises made before the trial and the immediate flip flop after he won the money.

The conflicts of interest between Greer,Felos,Jodi's family contributing to campaign funds, Her priest who won't support her despite his commission to by the pope.. yet the same people trying to end her life are contributing monitarily to his parish. None of which were mentioned nor explained in this article.

Can you honestly say you trust this guy beyond a shadow of a doubt? Cuz that would be what it would take to allow him to be the one to decide the fate of his wife. That kind of trust.

There is so much more. SOOO much more then even this. It is an abomination not to want answers to these questions. Good answers. Not from a corrupt judge who is legally blind so couldn't possibly have seen the videos of her. That bone scan is awfully hard to read...

Why aren't you asking why??
157 posted on 03/20/2005 7:04:53 PM PST by ljswisc
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To: surfatsixty

Then the "big tent" will have to accommodate alternative views. Get used to it.


158 posted on 03/20/2005 7:05:57 PM PST by VRWC For Truth (Constitution or bust)
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To: Howlin; jaime1959

Something like that, yeah.


159 posted on 03/20/2005 7:06:05 PM PST by BigSkyFreeper (You have a //cuckoo// God given right //Yeeeahrgh!!// to be an //Hello?// atheist)
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To: surfatsixty
Get off your f'ing horse, read the facts and the timelines, and the truth is apparent, dumb@ss.

He's not an adulterer. He waited 5 f'ing years.

He's just human except to some extremist agenda pusher like yourself.

You are what's wrong with my Republican Party

Uh he is still married to Terri and has two kids to another woman. That is cheating and adultery.

I'll ignore the profanity, coming from a person who is mad about Terri having a chance at life.

160 posted on 03/20/2005 7:06:20 PM PST by Dane ( anyone who believes hillary would do something to stop illegal immigration is believing gibberish)
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