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
What is threatening to him in saying he saw her fall? It invites all sorts of unwelcome follow-up questions. Where exactly was she standing? How did she fall? Did she keel over? Did she try to grab anything to break her fall? Did she hit her head? Did she slump to her knees? Did she say anything? Did she make any noises? Did she move after she fell? Try to crawl, try to stand? What did YOU do next?
It always struck me that Terri's failure to make any sounds of distress -- words, groans, a scream -- especially needs explaining.
The review didn't give away any of the book's revelations -- darn it!
Great minds think alike and all that :-)
Hooray for Pat Anderson! She was always a hero in this story and her words today will find the right hearts.
There is always food for thought in the NCG. With few exceptions regarding Terri's collapse and the subsequent case file, I seem to have more questions unanswered with every look I take. The answered questions just seem so few and far between.
That was a whopper. An untruth. Prevarication. Mendacity. A falsehood. A lie. A bald lie. That whopper would have won the national grand championship for the old Burlington Liar's Club.
(I don't know if anyone will remember the Burlington Liar's Club, but it was a sort of national institution once. Here is one of its real grand championship lies: "It was so cold this winter that I saw a politician with his hands in his own pockets!")
Telling silly yarns at the Liar's Club is fun. Telling lies to the police is criminal obstruction of justice.
It's weird. All the advertising is there, but there is no article to view. Did it say pretty much the same stuff that the St.Pete Slimes article did?
It's sad and disturbing, isn't it!
Only trouble with linked material is, you can't discuss it. Be sure to make note of any unanswered questions, then come back and post them here. Then we'll all brainstorm :-)
Doesn't seem alarming. They probably post for a day or two or three and then archive the material. In this case, the article is available from archives but you have to tell the newspaper a bit about yourself to get entry (don't tell them any more than name, rank and serial number :-) ).
Perhaps the reporter and the police person were doing what we have understood to be happening for a very long time, that the disabled are routinely overlooked and underheard. Methinks the bias of the reporter is showing!
[Schiavo] "Acknowledges that Terri must have suffered from the eating disorder bulimia, something he hadn't noticed and was unwilling to accept for years."
"Acknowledging" bulimia that he did not observe, that the Medical Examiner pooh-poohed, and that was essentially disproven by the nature of Terri's injury, is lying through his teeth -- again.
And when Bob is asked why God didn’t answer their prayers, Bob sighs and said He did.
“Without God, we would not have made it,” Bob said. “Maybe the prayers weren’t meant to save Terri, but to help us get through this.”
I am a little surprised to see the wording by the Florida Baptist Witness in regard to prayers to God, but am extremely glad that Mr. Schindler answered the way he did. I have always been taught that God does answer all our prayers, but sometimes He say "no" or "not right now" or "yes, but not how you are hoping it will be accomplished". Whenever we feel that God has closed a door, we must always ALWAYS look for the window He has left open for us! He is the Master, and we are His servants, not the other way around.
Oh, I know we will keep looking for the hints. Sometimes I feel as though I'm on a mission of sorts. This sticks in my craw. I cannot forget. This is just one of those things that leaves an imprint on you. Something's just not right, and I probably won't ever get settled about this aspect until it is resolved.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1609512/posts
The United States and/or Florida could not grant TERRI amnesty or a pardon from a barbaric death but Jeb's squishy soft on illegal immigration. Just being Mama's boy or ginning up the illegals? There's been an invasion and Jeb's proving again why he can never be president.
Taxpayers and fellow jail employees paid for all of Mikey's leaves of absences re: Terri.
Sheriff's employees donated their sick days so that he could sit there while the State of Florida murdered Terri for him.
Did you see the police report at www.judgegeorgegreer.com? There's also a table of Mikey's different versions of that night.
Jeb Bush finally came out for illegal immigration. He forgot to go on tv in a sombrero but give him time. He's such a sellout. I apologize for helping him get re-elected.
SCHIAVO-GATE IS REAL. Terri was murdered by governmental interference in her civil rights.
(IMO, Mary Labyak's living large off of (victims) like Terri.)
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