Schiavos speak up about life after Terri (Barf Alert!)

CLEARWATER - The one-story brick house sits in a carefully tended yard in a cul de sac, a gray Honda minivan parked in the driveway shaded by trees. Hospice, the license plate says, Every day is a gift .

Inside, he reads his daughter to sleep and changes his son's diapers. He steps over disregarded toys and animal books and escapes with the Sopranos and Extreme Home Makeover , slipping happily into someone else's drama. He works 12-hour days to keep the bills at bay and yawns as he sits on the couch. She reminds him to take out the trash, and he does.

In the year since Terri Schiavo died the most public of deaths, Michael still leads two different lives.

He guards his privacy but has written a book about the years-long political and ethical battle he waged to remove his wife's feeding tube. He fails to keep up with happenings in Tallahassee and Washington yet has started his own political action committee. He removes all signs of his first wife from his house yet welcomes recognition and comments from strangers about what he did for her.

The book, Terri: The Truth , which will be released in bookstores today, calls for education about living wills and eating disorders and for fighting politicians, activists, anyone intervening in end-of-life decisions.

In his first newspaper interview since Terri died, Mike - known by the world as Michael but called Mike by family members and friends - tells the St. Petersburg Times that a lot has happened to him in the last year, but not much has changed.

These days, there are only flashes of the elusive, arrogant Michael Schiavo the world got to know. He's more reflective now but still has to remind himself sometimes not to get angry.

"This was the biggest right to die case in history. This will never ever go away. So everybody has to learn to live with it and just get on," he said in a lengthy, wide-ranging interview last week. "I can't make it go away. It will always be there. But you can teach yourself how to move on."

After his wife's death on March 31, 2005, Mike left town for two months. He and his longtime girlfriend, Jodi Centonze, took their two young children to a friend's beach house.

Mike, a registered nurse, took the extended time off from work at the Pinellas County Jail after his co-workers donated vacation days to him. They contributed so many days he gave some back.

The family returned to their home in Countryside where they had lived quietly for years, before the case ever landed in court.

The four-bedroom house with the sage green trim and enclosed swimming pool sits alongside five other houses. It was there that camera crews camped out on the sidewalk and activists threw roses for Terri on the front lawn.

Mike helps supervise the 150 nurses who care for the jail's 3,600 inmates. His schedule is never the same two weeks in a row. These days he comes home at 7 p.m. It used to be midnight.

Jodi, whom Mike calls Jo, had worked her way from file clerk to vice president at an insurance agency when she quit in 2000 after the company was sold. She stays home with their kids now and the family lives off Mike's annual salary of $68,500.

Three-year-old Olivia loves all princesses from Cinderella to Belle. She prances around the house in her bathing suit, hoping for time in the pool. She attends a Catholic preschool three days a week.

Nicholas, 2, likes Thomas the Tank Engine, climbing and beating up on his sister. He never tires of stuffing big chunks of bananas in his mouth.

"Meow. Meow," Nicky grins. No one knows where he got that. The family has a dog, a golden retriever named Samantha.

The couple have never considered moving from Pinellas County where his former in-laws, the Schindlers, still live and where Schiavo has been a household name for years.

"Why should I?" asked Mike, 42, wearing shorts and a T-shirt while eating his usual chicken Caesar salad from a favorite Italian restaurant on a recent Sunday night.

Mike notices strangers nudging each other when they catch sight of him in a restaurant or shop. Every few days, someone will approach him.

"They talk. They whisper. When they say something to me, it's always complimentary," he said. "I had one gentleman tell me the other day that I'm his hero."

Jodi, 41, is never recognized. In the dozen years she has known and loved Mike, she has never attended a court hearing or spoken publicly. Until now.

Almost at the last minute, Jodi has decided to join Mike as he embarks on a week's worth of national publicity to talk about the book. She will appear on at least three national shows.

"How do you prepare for that? I don't know. You never know what people are going to say or do to you," she said, curled up on the couch wearing jeans with her curly brown hair pulled back. "I am not embarrassed or ashamed of who I am."

Inside their house, there is no sign of Terri. Photos of her are stored under the bed in the master bedroom, where Jodi worked with a professional decorator to develop their sophisticated dark wood and animal motif.

Mike packed away years of newspaper clippings, magazine articles, documents and letters about Terri in two huge plastic bins. They sit in the garage, alongside an old dining room table and outdated toys.

He said he will pull the boxes out one day when his children are old enough to hear about Terri. He hopes they will be proud.

Mike and Jodi met in July 1993. Mike was visiting a friend, who is an orthodontist. Jodi was sitting in the waiting room.

It had been three years since Terri's heart mysteriously stopped in 1990, depriving her brain of oxygen and leaving her in what her doctors called a persistent vegetative state.

Mike and Jodi became friends, and he said he gradually realized he was falling in love with her. He said he broke up with her three or four times as he struggled with the guilt of loving two women at the same time. He worried about dragging Jodi into his messy life.

"I knew the score when I met him," she said. "I didn't expect Mike to turn his back on Terri, just to move on to an easier life with me."

He eventually asked Jodi to marry him in October 1994. She said yes, though she felt uncomfortable wearing a ring at first. They bought a home together in 1995 and years later decided to have children without knowing when they would marry.

Mike and Jodi were together through almost every legal decision about Terri, through the entire battle with the Schindlers, through the political fight. These days, it's Jodi, even more than Mike, who can't seem to stop talking about the case, constantly steering their conversations back to the Schindlers, the anger still apparent after all these years.

Jodi said she felt like she knew Terri from Mike and his large family. Early on they often misspoke and called her Terri.

After Mike's mother died, Jodi took over the Terri chores. With help from nurses and aides, Jodi did Terri's laundry each week and shopped for the clothes, makeup and perfume Mike insisted she keep wearing in bed.

Jodi visited Terri once, in 2000. Judge George Greer ordered that the feeding tube be removed. It was supposed to be the end, and Jodi wanted to say goodbye.

In March 2005, Terri Schiavo was still alive and her case had become a national cause. Mike still was arguing for her feeding tube to be removed; her parents still were arguing against it, saying she could recover. Court appeals were exhausted. Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature had tried to intervene on the side of Terri's parents. Congress and President Bush were about to step in.

As protesters and TV cameras camped out at their house, Jodi worried about their children. She asked Mike something she had never asked before: Give up the fight.

They argued for hours until he agreed. Then he called his attorney, George Felos.

Felos reminded him the case was now bigger than Terri Schiavo. He said it was about everyone who wanted to be able to refuse medical treatment, everyone who didn't want the government to intervene in their lives.

Mike told Jodi he had changed his mind, that he would not walk away. Jodi did. She packed her bags and left with the kids.

"I was done," she said. "It was no longer Mike and the Schindlers. It was Mike and the governor and then Mike and the president. Forget it already. This is crazy. You are just one little person from Florida. Enough already."

Mike and Jodi planned to wait until April 2006 - a full year after Terri's death - to get married. Friends persuaded Jodi to stop caring what people would think and move up the date.

The invitations were mailed in early December. Word didn't leak until the day before the Jan. 21 ceremony. Jodi's wedding planner used her last name for most arrangements. Jodi bought her dress under her mother's maiden name. Even the photographer was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. The first one refused.

About 90 people attended the wedding at a Catholic church in Safety Harbor and reception at East Lake Country Club where everything from the bridesmaids' dresses to the M&Ms, the couple's favorite, fit in with a black and white theme.

At each place setting was a note announcing that a donation had been made to Hospice of the Florida Suncoast in memory of Mike and Jodi's parents. And in memory of Terri.

At the wedding, Mike wore his new wedding band, a circle of diamonds almost 3 carats in weight. He asked Jodi Schiavo if it would be okay if he also wore another ring, one he fashioned long ago out of diamonds from Terri's wedding ring. She said yes.

Mike doesn't read the daily newspaper that lands on his front walk. He doesn't follow the Florida Legislature or Congress either.

But he knows he needs to start. He has formed a political action committee, TerriPAC, to raise money and challenge the politicians who tried to intervene in his effort to remove Terri's feeding tube. He has raised $10,000 so far.

"People who got involved in my life should have never gotten involved," he said. "If they can do it to me, they can do it to you. They are voted and elected in to run the country, not my life. Or anybody else's life."

Mike said he hopes his book will spur more interest in his cause and is spending this week in New York trying to drum up sales with appearances on NBC's Today Show and ABC's The View , among others.

He said he has no plan to seek public office, though he said "quite a few people" asked him to run for U.S. Senate.

Mike said he won't earn any money from the PAC or from what he expects to be regular speaking engagements. He won't say what he received for writing the book.

Mike and Jodi Schiavo switched from registered Republicans to registered Democrats after Terri died. Mike said it's not about partisan politics and said he will support Republicans or Democrats, even though it was the GOP majority in the Legislature and Congress that tried to prolong Terri's life.

He plans to endorse candidates this year in many races, including the Florida governor's race. Both Democratic candidates, state Sen. Rod Smith and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, vocally opposed legislative efforts to reinsert the tube.

Terri was cremated and her ashes buried at a cemetery in Clearwater. A brass grave marker inscribed with the words "I kept my promise" and a simple marble bench overlook a pond with a fountain in the center.

"I think Terri would have been very proud and very happy," Mike said. "I did what she wanted. She's set free."

Mike will fly home from New York on Friday, the anniversary of Terri's death. He wants some time alone, some time to do something private just for her.

But first a car will be waiting to take him to tape an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

He'd sell his soul (if he has one) to make money off of his dead wife.

Michael has been living off of Terri for over 15 years. She was the breadwinner for them, because Mike couldn't (or wouldn't) hold down a steady job. After she was hospitalized, Michael lived off of her disability and insurance money from Prudential (Terri worked for them). He lived with the Schindlers at their expense while Terri was in the hospital, and after her release for a while. Then he got $$ in settlement with one of the doctors that was sued, and more for loss of consortium at the malpractice trial, not to mention the $ that was in trust for Terri's rehab. Then there was life insurance $ after she died (most likely anyway, since Jodi was in the insurance business). There was also some property (land) that was held in trust to help pay for Terri's expenses if it was ever needed. Michael got that upon Terri's death as part of her estate.

Why should he get off the Terri gravy train before he has eked out every last dime he can get? (sarc)

I remember after her death, maybe a few weeks later, we had a thread on here stating that Michael filed for an insurance payments. Previously he had always claimed there was no policy to make a claim on.

Was this ever corroborated?

Prior to the invention of artificial feeding tubes, she would have naturally expired many years before.

Artificial feeding tubes have been being used in various forms since the late 1800's. Not entirely a new apparatus. And they don't need to use a pump per se to deliver the nourishment. It can be accomplished with a gravity bag.

I have no doubts that he's profited very well from his wife's "accident" and death. However, using his home as evidence of this may be very wrong.

Housing in Fl has gone through the roof in the last few years. As an example, my home sold 4 years ago for 89k, two years after that it sold for 185k. We bought it last year for 224k and our newest appraisal has us at 297k.

It's very possible he's living in a 300k home but paid much less for it a few years back.

Just a bit of information. I think the man is nothing but a profiteering psychopath who enjoyed murdering his wife and putting her family through a living hell as much as he loves the money he's got off of her.

I read the article you posted. What that article has failed to get across to you is that Mary Schindler has been a very faithful Catholic, despite the irregular attendance of her family. Many people have lapses of faith at one point or another, so for you to condemn the Schindlers in this area is, IMHO, not in line with the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Also, I don't know where you've gotten this idea that Terri "clearly used birth control prior to her massive weight loss which ended her normal fertility cycles". Unless you have a source you can cite for that, I think you are just speculating.

That's good info to know. Why isn't anyone in my family getting rich from real-estate? I can only imagine that if their appraisals have done what yours has, they would be doing all sorts of remodeling! ;-)

What that article has failed to get across to you is that Mary Schindler has been a very faithful Catholic, despite the irregular attendance of her family.

You can't be a very faithful Catholic and irregularly attend Mass. Its a contradiction in terms.

Also, I don't know where you've gotten this idea that Terri "clearly used birth control prior to her massive weight loss which ended her normal fertility cycles". Unless you have a source you can cite for that, I think you are just speculating.

Married for five years with normal signs of fertility and no pregnancy for a young woman is a pretty good source. You can call it speculation. I'll note it as reality.

That's the point that hooking up a heart machine or a ventilator would've been doing the work for her brain.

My wife's grandmother was on a ventilator and she certainly wasn't "brain-dead". She had congestive heart failure. I see you are another person who sees nothing wrong with asphyxiating people when medical technology could prevent it, but is against dehydration and starvation. Why? Is air less vital than food and water?

Oh, and he's been living in that dandy house (gated community) for several years now, well before his last pay raise to $68,500. I saw it's appraisal a few years back, and back then it was worth ~$300K. Man, he must have won the lottery or stolen it from a bank or *something* to be able to live in that house with that paycheck!

I was making around that much when I bought my house, and it is now worth over $300K also only a few years later. Maybe I also stole it or won the lottery?

Someone who runs the large Catholic ping lists may be able to provide more information on the churches response to this marriage.

The Church had no response because legally (in civil terms) Michael hadn't murdered his wife, while morally, the local Bishop permitted it canonically to regularize Schiavo's immoral living arrangements. I can't speak to what the Bishop was thinking because I am not the Bishop.

I was making around that much when I bought my house, and it is now worth over $300K also only a few years later.

HtC, If you read Ohiohan from Florida's post carefully, you will see that you have it exactly backward.

You are saying that you were making that amount of money a few years back when you purchased your house and now a few years later your house is worth 300K+.

OfF is saying that Schiavo's house was already worth 300K+ a few years ago, and it was purchased when he was making significantly less of a salary than he is now.

Basically, the exact opposite of what you are saying.

It depends on the area in FL you live in. I'm in S. Florida where housing prices have gone nuts. I'm also at an advantage in that I live in one of the few areas of S. Dade county that is not built out. We've had 35,000 new resident in my area in the last year.

All of Florida has seen real estate prices increase, I'm sure your relatives are doing better then you think or they may realize.

You'd think after the last few hurricane seasons people wouldn't want to move here yet they still keep coming....

I clearly remember Pope John Paul II, prior to his death, pleading with Michael Schiavo to not starve his wife to death. He still murdered her - such a fine Catholic I tell ya.

Let's hope Benedict does something about this joke of a marriage. Benedict seems to have no problem defrocking Priests - hopefully Lynch's head will be on his chopping block.

He didn't buy it for $300K. It was worth that several years ago, but after he bought it. Houses appreciate quickly it hot markets like Florida. With no state or local income tax, and relatively low property taxes, Schiavo's salary would go further than in other places, and it shouldn't be particularly difficult to take on a $1500 mortgage payment on a $68.5 salary, which would buy $240,000 of mortgage. Add in a downpayment, and you are close to $300K.

There is plenthy of other things to do than to dream up nonsense like this about Schiavo and worry about his house and if he used settlement money to pay for it. Frankly, WHO CARES!

it shouldn't be particularly difficult to take on a $1500 mortgage payment on a $68.5 salary

Again, you are not paying attention. He wasn't making that much at the time.Frankly, WHO CARES!

It underlines the trope that the wicked prosper and no one asks any questions.

Was this ever corroborated?

If it was, I missed it.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.