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 Shiavo Case: More Commentary
Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning!
Before I get started today, let me say thank you to all who took the time to respond to yesterday’s piece. Even those folks who strongly disagreed with some of my comments had some things to say worth considering.
Like I said yesterday when I posted a response to some comments in my home group, United Republicans, I knew I had stepped in it up to here. Almost needed wading boots on, if you know what I mean.
Few things I’ve written over the years have provoked more responses than yesterday’s piece. The responses have spanned the gamut of emotions from outright anger at some of my commentary, to the highly appreciative (oddly enough from the medical community), to the very thoughtful and insightful.
Newspaper columnists, doctors, nurses, EMT’s, lawyers, ministers, military personnel, homemakers – you name it – weighed in yesterday following my posting of the article.
I hadn’t really intended to do a follow-up piece, and thought perhaps yesterday’s article would suffice, but some of the commentary I’ve received has been extremely thought provoking.
Let me also retract and apologize for a gratuitous comment I made toward the end of yesterday’s piece. Without thinking about how it was going to sound, I said, “Sticking our noses in everyone else’s business seems to be the order of the day.” That was ill-said. There was a better way to express what I was trying to communicate, and that remark created an impression of arrogance. My apologies.
I’m running a bit behind today. My coffee is steeping in the French Press and isn’t quite ready to pour, so I’m going to get started and break away in a minute to pour my cup. The rest of you are hopefully not waiting for your coffee, tea, grapefruit juice or whatever.
Sharon Beverly sent me a response yesterday that I really appreciated, and it highlights a situation that exists in this country – no, in the world – with those whom we refer to as “handicapped,” or “brain-damaged.” Her comments are worth reprinting for all of you.
“Not far from my house is a school for handicapped children. When my oldest daughter was still in public school, her school was next door to Caminiti, so she and her classmates would make weekly trips to the school and help the special kids learn dance routines for square dance performances, etc., that all of us parents would attend.
A large portion of those kids are wheelchair bound, unable to speak, and some have feeding tubes that they’ve had since they were born.
One of my friends has a brain-damaged daughter who is 23 with the mind of a two year old who attends the school. She’s twenty three and wears a diaper. She was damaged by an MMR vaccine.
Many of these kids were born blind, deaf, dumb, and unable to ambulate. Still, my sweet baby and her classmates would diligently “dance” with them in their wheelchairs-even the unresponsive ones.
When my mother was dying of cancer, she began to have seizures and strokes regularly because the cancer was destroying her brain tissue.
I remember how I would sit and talk to her about things, and some days all she could do was stare at me, or stare into space, or drift off into an unconscious state as I was talking, so I didn’t think she understood me.
Then, the nurses began telling me how she would start chattering on about this or that two or three days later, and answering my questions two or thee days later. It took that long for her brain to process the information, and sometimes she couldn’t do it at all.
The point is, she was in there. It is the soul that gives us lively animation, not the brain. I’ve heard many testimonies of people awakening from a “vegetative state” (I HATE that term-people are not vegetables) and telling about how they heard every word that was spoken in their presence and the whole time they were screaming “HEY! I’m in here! Don’t kill me!”
If this nation goes on to accept the court-ordered death of someone who cannot speak for themselves, what is to stop us from ordering the death of our imperfect children next? After all, they are certainly not living lives up to our standards of quality life, right? Next, we can go for the elderly cuz they’re a nuisance, too. Then the Jews, and then us Christians, and on and on and on....
This is so much more critical than it appears to be. I do not wish to argue and debate this with anyone. Terri is going to die anyway, and her death is simply one more stepping stone leading to a real culture of death.
The path we are taking is in lock step with the path of Hitler’s Nazi regime, and it is terribly disturbing to me that so many people seem to not comprehend this.
We have a God-given, constitutionally protected right to life in the US, and Terri has been robbed of it by a judicial system in its death throes. All I can say is, “May God have mercy on us all.”
Sharon’s comments reminded me of an event that took place some months back when our granddaughter, Serena, was in the hospital to have some steel pins put in one of her legs in order to straighten it. Serena, if you remember, is the granddaughter of whom I spoke in the piece several months ago titled
TRUE GRIT.
Della went to check on Serena in her room after the procedure had been completed. In the bed next to Serena was a little girl whose physical size was not much larger than Serena’s but she was perhaps five to seven years old. For the sake of this article, we will refer to the little girl as “Lindy.”
Lindy’s grandmother came into the room while Della was there. The little girl was moaning and moving her head around, looking all over the hospital room. The grandmother explained to Della that when Lindy was two or two and a half years old, she was strapped into a car seat in the back of the family car. The girl’s dad was in a hurry and didn’t bother to strap the child’s seat itself with the car’s safety straps. He pushed the door closed, but in his hurry didn’t check to make sure it latched.
His wife came out of the house, got in the car and she, too, neglected to check that her daughter was safely strapped in and the door securely closed. The dad jumped in, started the car and roared off down the street. At 40 or 45 mph, he rounded a corner and the back door flew open. Lindy fell out of the car, landing on her head, car seat and all.
Swearing and cursing, the father stopped, picked up the girl and took her to the hospital. The blow compressed the medulla oblongata and so dislocated the upper portion of her spine that t resulted in the severing of nerves and permanent injury to parts of her brain.
Lindy’s body stopped growing at its normal rate following the accident, and there were many times when she appeared to be in “never-never land.” Although she learned to speak, her conversations were frequently disjointed. She was rendered paraplegic, although she did have limited use of her hands and could move her legs partially.
Lindy’s parents grew tired of the responsibility of caring for a disabled child. Their doctors told them that Lindy would essentially “be a vegetable” for her entire life. Like Serena, she could feed herself, but that required so much effort the parents had her fed intravenously.
After something like five years in this state, with the doctors telling the parents that Lindy would “never be more than a vegetable,” they decided to call it quits. The doctor advised them that although she seemed alert, Lindy wasn’t really there. The parents brought Lindy to the hospital and instructed the doctors and nurses to let her die.
This was where Della came on the scene. The grandmother was horrified at her son’s decision, but felt powerless to intervene. As she related the story to Della, she felt she couldn’t afford to take on the responsibility of caring for Lindy, and so – by default – agreed with the parents’ decision. The parents walked away from Lindy entirely. They never returned to the hospital to check on their daughter to see whether she lived or died.
The grandmother left a few minutes after telling Della the story. She was sickened by what she heard, and when Lindy began moaning, she went to her bedside, took her hand, and began to pray for her. As she stroked Lindy’s head, the little girl looked up at her and smiled. To quote Sharon’s expression, Lindy was essentially saying to Della, “Hey, I’m in here! I know what’s happening.”
When Della turned to go back to Serena’s bedside, Lindy’s fingers closed around Della’s finger and she held on. That was too much for Della.
Lindy’s lips were parched – obviously from not having any water to drink. She got a glass of water and began to slowly give Lindy some water to drink. A nurse walked in just at that moment and saw what Della was doing. She ran to the bedside and swept Della’s hand away.
Della let the nurse know in no uncertain terms what was happening and said (and I’m paraphrasing her comments), “How dare you participate in allowing this child to die? You’re committing murder!” She demanded to speak to the doctor and in short order made it known that this was simply unacceptable.
Serena was discharged from the hospital the next day. Lindy was gone. Nothing ever appeared in the local newspapers about her death, and the doctors and nurses had nothing to say. We can only hope that one of them refused to participate in the calculated murder of a helpless little girl and spirited her away. It would have been illegal and such action would have jeopardized their job, but if some doctor or nurse decided to intervene, he or she would likely have had plenty of cooperation in spiriting her out of there.
It takes no great imagination to understand and appreciate the Schindler family’s desires to hang on to Terry Schiavo, their daughter. The human emotion here is completely understandable. We have a cliché in our society, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”
Winnie correctly pointed out in her response that Michael Schiavo does not have a “common-law” wife. I misspoke by simply repeating the description used in the electronic media. Florida Law – nor any other state, so far as I am aware – makes any provision for recognizing a second woman in a relationship as a “common-law” wife. Until Terry is dead, the marriage is annulled, or a divorce is granted, she is the only wife of Michael. Jodi Centonze can only be classified as a “girlfriend.”
While no one has ever presented any convincing evidence (and I’m not talking about rumors and hearsay) that I’ve seen suggesting that Michael and Terry did not have a good marriage prior to this tragic event, the controversy has erupted from the point in time where Michael gave up, and the actions that have followed since. Just like Lindy’s parents gave up on her, Michael gave up on Terry.
Della and I were discussing this case yesterday between ourselves. If something like this were to happen to Della, hell and high water would never convince me to give up on her. The same is true of Della’s responses toward me.
We have a bond of love in the natural, but we also have a bond of love in the Spirit. With that bond of love in the Spirit comes a dimension of faith that simply will not give up or accept any substitute.
As I noted in the piece, TRUE GRIT, Serena has always had a confession of faith despite her present paraplegic condition. She does not look at her present incapacity as the final answer. Though she was stricken with Transverse Myelitis more than three years ago, she will still tell you, “I’m going to walk again, and I’m going to dance, because Jesus told me so.”
We Americans absolutely MUST rise up against the socialist, liberal encroachment that fosters the growing culture of death, the killing off of the infirm, the elderly and the handicapped. If we don’t, we will most certainly get what we deserve!
The Schiavo case has all the elements of this culture embedded in it.
Jenny, who loves to spar with me in United Republicans, made a comment that really sums up this
case:
“The respect for life is dwindling fast in this country...and contrary to the ridiculous assertions … that this is a "private' matter... the way our society and our judges in particular... view life in this country...is of grave importance to us all.”
AMEN! Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Blessings on you. Have a great weekend. See you Monday.
--Regner
Regner A. Capener
EKKLESIA HOUSE
RR-15, Box 6180
Mission, TX 78574-9589
(956) 583-5355
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This article may be reprinted, reposted, copied and re-used – in whole or in part – with proper attribution.
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