MauriceReeves.com

My heart aches for all of the families involved in this case.

My heart aches because I know what it feels like to have a family member on life-support. I know what it feels like to debate turning off the machines and having to let go. My father died when I was 16 years old. He had pancreatic cancer, and had to be fed through a tube. The last 6 months of his life, he was delusional, and then finally comatose, and unable to respond. There was no way to know if he knew we were there, or the days were passing, or if he knew about anything around him. Eventually, his doctors and my mom agreed that it was best just to stop fighting the cancer and let him die. We didn't remove his feeding tube, but we stopped treatment, removed him from the repirator, and prepared for the certainity that he would die soon.

He did die, and only then was I able to move on. I didn't feel like I could move on, that I didn't have any closure until he had died. It wasn't that I wanted my father to die, but I knew it was eventual, my heart broke every time I sat in the nursing home. This man who had been a colossus in my life, seemed permanently taller than me, no matter how tall I'd gotten, and seemed tougher than anyone else I knew was laid low in an instant by something we couldn't even see.

I held his hand and whispered "It's okay pubba, you can let go. Please let go. You don't need to hang on for us. It's okay." I just kept repeating that, holding his hand. I wasn't really ready for him to die, and I certainly wasn't okay with him not being in my life anymore, but I needed closure.

The night he died, I held his hand. It was cold, and the skin was rough. He didn't squeeze back like he used to. There was none of the warmth in his touch. I held his hand in both of mine, wedged between his bed and his feeding machine. It clicked with every turn, slowly feeding him nutrients. I held his hand and whispered "It's okay pubba, you can let go. Please let go. You don't need to hang on for us. It's okay." I just kept repeating that, holding his hand. I wasn't really ready for him to die, and I certainly wasn't okay with him not being in my life anymore, but I needed closure. I felt like there was a gaping maw in my heart, a sucking black hole draining everything from me. I was reading "The Dark Half", by Stephen King, and I kept praying that somehow the horror in the book would become real, so I could focus on that for a while. I might have even let myself die, I was in that deep of a despair. And I was going to stay there as long as my father was in limbo between life and death. I needed to know that everything was done with. I wouldn't have been able to move on with my own life if he was still alive. I knew that if my father were still alive, even in a comatose state somewhere, my life would continue to revolve around him, and sitting in that chair in the nursing home, talking to him, waiting for the inevitable that never seemed to come.

The case of Terri Schiavo is different in particulars, though the emotions are almost certainly the same. Terri apparently still has some brain function, though no one can agree on how much, or to what extent. Her husband is seeking closure, and her family portrays him as a heartless monster. Her family wants to care for her, and her husband and her doctors think they're holding on to false hopes.

And everyone in the country has an opinion. Many, like me, are uncomfortable with the idea of taking her off the feeding tube. The notion of Terri starving to death is very unsettling.

But here's the difficult part of this whole debate. We have a good idea what's going on in the hearts of her parents. They mourn the loss of their child and want to hold on to her, hold on to the hope that maybe, beyond all doubts, she'll be revived to some level of functionality, something they can relate to, to some person that resembles the daughter they used to know.

But what about the husband? Sure he's dating someone now (as people are quick to point out), and people keep bringing up the money in the fund left over to care for her. Instead of looking at Michael Schiavo as a human, they're creating a monster, in the press, and in their own hearts. They don't recognize that it's easy to find a conspiracy anywhere you want if you look hard enough. How do we summarily dismiss the feelings of the husband? Maybe he doesn't feel he can reasonably move on if Terri's still alive. He loved this woman. They got married. They planned to have a family together, and a part of him probably still loves her. But that all came screaching to a halt, and now he's exhausted, beat up, and seeking closure. Maybe that won't come for him until she's passed on, and that may not happen naturally for another 30 or 40 years. Are we going to make him a prisoner to the hopes of his in-laws, forever to spend his days mourning for a wife he lost through no fault of his own, but hasn't passed yet?

And trutfully, this matter will not be resolved by the doctors or the lawyers, the courts, or the governor, or even the Supreme Court and the President.

There are no easy answers to this question, and I predict that for every doctor you find that will testify there's no hope for her, you'll find one that says there is. There are basic tests you can do to determine her level of interaction, but they're not conclusive. And trutfully, this matter will not be resolved by the doctors or the lawyers, the courts, or the governor, or even the Supreme Court and the President. This matter won't be resolved until Michael Schiavo and his in-laws come to an agreement, and speak to each other as adults. They've all been done a disservice by taking this discussion to the international level, because now the expectations of the world, and the intrusion of the media makes it that much more difficult to talk.

My own personal take is this: I'm not comfortable with Terri starving to death, and if the families can agree to let her die, then I would ask they use Dr. Kevorkian's methods, and gently put her to sleep. Barring that, and if her family will not, or can not give up hope for Terri, they need to help find a way to let Michael Schiavo move on, and either way, I believe that they should personally apologize for villifying him in the press.