Posted on 03/14/2006 11:28:51 AM PST by KevinNuPac
Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Kevin Fobbs
March 13, 2006
Terri's Day A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?
And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.
On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.
All of us have felt in some way that pain even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.
For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.
Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."
But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "
Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event just two days before Mother's Day there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.
This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.
Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."
So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.
As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.
By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313
** Maybe Terri was ready to go at that point. Maybe she had just had enough of Michael's control. Maybe Michael lost it. I know these are all maybe's, but this is a plausible scenario.**
Yes, it is for sure a plausible scenario. She could have been so scared and trying to leave. All these things should have been investigated. A healthy woman of 26 doesn't just collaspe like Terri did. Something happened.
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0040014.cfm
I'm not at all certain, but www.baynews9.com may cover Terri's Service tonight. I don't know if they were invited or not. Check the listings.
http://www.hospicepatients.org/hospnews.html
** Remember Judge Greer's witness evidence tampering.**
I sure do. I guess Greer's only goal was to maintain his own words - which went something like this - The order of this court, is for the girl to die. I can't remember the exact words, but I'm sure others here do and could quote them exactly.
I believe that's ghoul Judge Greer in the photo.
From Faithmouse, brand new.
Thanks for the info from Cheryl's book. I still need to order it, plus several others about Terri.
I love Cheryl. She worked so hard trying to save Terri.
sounds like a death warrant to me. Greer must have thought he was in criminal court to sentence Terri to death. Guardianship judges are supposed to think of the ward's best interest, not sign their death warrant.
JUDGE GREER BELONGS IN A MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON.
As far as I know, we don't have the words of Dr. Harrison on record. Both versions are from MS.
"The spray bottle at the foot of the bed?"
FV - the spray bottle is next to a sponge and the label says Vinegar. Jesus was given vinegar on hyssop when he needed a drink. The symbolism is fantastic.
There will be a 1 year Memorial Mass this Friday, March 31st, 8pm at St. Patrick's in Largo, FL. Presiding will be Fr. Frank Pavone (Priests for Life) and Fr. Euteneuer (Human Life International). Terri's family will be in attendance. This Mass is open to all who supported Terri's fight for life.
8mm
.... labeled 'vinegar'. (That's what they offered our Lord when He was hanging on the cross ... vinegar).
I know of similar cases.
Thank you for the information. I'm glad that they had a chance to reach more people than I thought they had.
"Michael Schiavo with another dandy play on words:
"After all these years of people vilifying me, hanging me out to dry, I said to myself 'It's my turn,'" he said in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times last week."
NO, MIKEY, YOU HUNG TERRI OUT TO DRY and we KNOW THAT YOU LOVED HER TO DEATH.
Are those cop sirens going to make an arrest I hear?
Darn. It's just more victims being trafficked to Hospice."
Excellent post.
There were approx. forty other Terri supporters there who held a service followed by Monsignor Malanowski saying the Rosary. He sat on the big bench. I sat next to him, staring out at the giant fountain.
I took some photos afterward; a view from Mikey's bench, of Terri's marker, and a photo of the name of the lane for future reference if someone wants to know how to find her marker.
God Bless the Schindlers. God Bless Terri. Before I left there, I touched her name, not Schiavo but Theresa Marie. There's nothing ordinary about Terri Schindler in life or in death. Life is precious. Thank you, Terri for that lesson.
www.terrisfight.org (pls join the fight).
I wish Hannity would get rid of Colmes. Without Hannity, Colmes would be nothing.
Hmmm, I get the picture.
And the cross formed by the shadow of the window frame, and another cross on a pendant hanging out of the garbage pail.
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