Posted on 06/21/2005 1:13:32 PM PDT by sandbar
TAMPA, Fla. -- The inscription on the grave marker belonging to Terri Schiavo that reads "I kept my promise" is simply a message from her husband to his dead wife and is not meant to anger her family, the woman's brother-in-law said Tuesday.
Brian Schiavo told The Associated Press that he and a handful of other people attended the burial of Terri Schiavo's remains on a rainy Monday afternoon at a Clearwater cemetery. Others present included her husband, Michael Schiavo, her other brother-in-law, Steve Schiavo, and a priest.
But the woman's parents criticized Michael Schiavo for not notifying them about the burial beforehand and by inscribing "I kept my promise" on the bronze marker. Michael Schiavo had said he promised his wife he would not keep her alive artificially -- a critical element of the acrimonious legal battle over her end-of-life wishes.
"That was something he was feeling," Brian Schiavo said Tuesday. "It would have been very easy for him to walk away from this thing. But they had as promise to each other and he stuck by it."
Michael Schiavo, who received possession of his wife's remains after her death March 31, had said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. But she was instead buried at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park in Clearwater, near Michael Schiavo's home.
Terri Schiavo, Michael Schiavo
"I guess maybe he wanted to be closer to her," Brian Schiavo said. "It's just his decision to do so."
On the grave marker, Michael Schiavo also listed Feb. 25, 1990, as the date his wife "Departed this Earth." On that date, Terri Schiavo collapsed and fell into what most doctors said was an irreversible vegetative state.
Schiavo actually died March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed by court order. The grave marker lists that date as when Schiavo was "at peace."
Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, had opposed her cremation. Services for Schiavo already had been conducted in nearby Gulfport, where her parents live, and in Pennsylvania, where she grew up.
David Gibbs, the Schindlers' attorney, said the family was notified by fax only after Monday's service, when the family had already started getting calls from reporters.
Gibbs on Monday decried the inscriptions on the marker. "Obviously, that's a real shot and another unkind act toward a grieving mom and dad," he said.
But Brian Schiavo said the Schindlers "shouldn't consider themselves that important."
"I know the Schindlers look at it as a slap in the face," Brian Schiavo said. "They had nothing to do with it. That was based from Michael to Terri."
Gibbs did not immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.
Terri Schiavo collapsed in 1990 after a chemical imbalance caused her heart to stop. She left no written instructions in the event she became disabled, and her husband said she never would have wanted to be kept alive in what court-appointed doctors called a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.
Her parents, however, doubted she had any such end-of-life wishes. They maintained she would benefit from rehabilitation, despite most doctors saying her condition was irreversible.
The seven-year battle engulfed the courts, Congress, the White House and divided the country.
The interment comes less than a week after an autopsy report was released revealing that Terri Schiavo was almost certainly in a persistent vegetative state and that her body showed no signs of abuse by her husband, which had been alleged by her family. The cause of the 1990 collapse that left her with severe brain damage was not determined.
The report prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to ask the Pinellas County chief prosecutor to investigate what happened the night Terri Schiavo collapsed. The governor cited an alleged gap in time between when her husband found her unconscious and called 911. The husband says there was no delay in making the call.
He chose to focus on "honor and obey."
I kept my promise
"Yeah, Terri, I told you I'd kill you...."
"That dog don't hunt. He rings all my 'major creep' alarms."
Oh girl, you and me both. I think most, if not all, of his actions are based on how bad he hates Terri's parents. He seems very vindictive to me.
I don't doubt he would go that low. I can see a movie where he uses film from her grave on it. You know the more I think about, the worse it seems to me. Every time they go visit the site where her remains are they are going to see that. This guy has zero class.
Typical demonrat behavior (both he and his creepy hemlock lawyer felos are demonrats).
Being that when Teri told him she was leaving him the next day, he promised her she wouldn't get away from him. She didn't.
what goes around, comes around.....
may his next wife/fiance/slave do to him what he has done to Terri....
same goes for the entire arrogant Shiavo family....
I would never have been married if I thought it meant my family was not considered important.......
Someone else said it....
The whole thing evolved long ago from how much he 'loved' Terri to how much he hated her parents.
Through that lens, everything he does takes a different light.
That guy is one despicable piece of work.
Gravestone inscriptions are always about the deceased not about the survivors. Michael focuses on himself. How can anyone look at the videos of Terri smiling and claim she was dead. He is one sick piece of work.
I can understand him wanting to move on with his life. He could have divorced her and given her parents the chance to try therapy options. What would have been so awful? This would have just been a family tragedy and not a national interest story.
This last bit of nonsense is really over the top.
"Uh, yeah. He's what you would call a thoroughly contemptible, detestable person. He has no conscience, he's insensitive and he has NO MORALS whatsoever."
Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.
Yea, if keeping his so called 'promise' was sooo vitally important to him, so important to put it on Terri's grave marker, you would think it wouldn't have taken Schiavo SEVEN years to rememeber the 'promise'.
Maybe the promise he is referring to on the grave marker is some other promise. For example, "Terri if you try to leave me, I promise you are going to regret it, because I will kill you."
okay...I know that was mean of me, and most likely not true, but I think MS is a jerk. I can not help myself.
Sad terrible story, from the get-go.
You know Michael Schiavo and his disgusting brothers sit around laughing and yucking it up over the suffering of the Schindler's. I hope some day justice will be done.
No class. None.
None of the people involved in this sorry mess have any class. They all sacrificed it long ago.
I'll be glad when they're all out of the news.
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