ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)–It was a painful time for the Schindler family.
After years of disappointing legal maneuvers, a failed act of Congress and an emotional and highly publicized conflict with their adult daughter’s husband, Michael, Terri Schindler Schiavo died March 31, 2005, at a Pinellas Park hospice.
A year later, the orange fences that kept protestors away from hospice property and out of the street for over two weeks are but a distant memory. The on-site protests represented an unknown number of individuals mostly who believed dehydrating to death the 40-year old brain-damaged woman was both immoral, unethical and should be against the law.
One year later: Terri’s legacy survives
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ST. PETERSBURG (FBW)-In her first interview since last year’s controversial dehydration death of Terri Schiavo, Pat Anderson, a long-time attorney in St. Petersburg who worked on the case for more than three years, told Florida Baptist Witness in late March she felt like she was “dropped into boiling oil,” when she entered the case in 2001 in the midst of an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Opening a solo practice after 19 years of doing media defense, Anderson said Terri Schiavo’s father, Bob Schindler Sr., asked her to take case—which she saw through motions and appeals that held off Terri’s dehydraton for 3 1/2 years.
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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.