A Life That Matters (22 page)

“They’ll never turn it down,” the lawyers said. “Not with the pope on your side.”

Pat immediately filed with Greer to have the feeding tube ruling overturned, and Felos fought back, once again via the media.

“It’s a frivolous lawsuit,” he fumed. “This family will never stop. How long has the case been going on? Four years! And Terri wasn’t even a practicing Catholic.”

This last was an outright lie, and Felos knew it. So did Michael, yet he, too, lied. A reporter for the
Tampa Tribune
called Bobby. “Michael just did an interview with us and said the Schindler family never went to church a day in their life.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Bobby said. “Preposterous. They got married in a Catholic church, for crying out loud!”

Michael knew that the entire family went to Mass every Sunday when the kids were growing up and that our children all went to parochial grammar, elementary, and high schools. Bobby was an altar boy. When Felos made the statement, Bobby was teaching at a Catholic school.

Nevertheless, the
Tribune
ran with the story. Six months later, Judge Greer turned down Pat’s motion, and the Second District Court of Appeals upheld him. To them, Terri’s religious beliefs were meaningless.

To me, however, the pope’s statement was as meaningful as anything that happened in our journey. Throughout Terri’s ordeal, when things were blackest, when it seemed sure that she was about to die, when I had lost faith in Michael’s goodness and the fairness of the courts, my belief in God sustained me.

And here, miraculously, was His representative on earth telling my family that our battle was just, our cause sanctioned by God. The legal system failed us. A higher court lifted me up.

CHAPTER 21

Desperate Maneuvers

Once we were allowed to see Terri again, nothing else mattered except saving her life. Thus, the events in 2004—the legal battles, the frenzied phone calls with good news or bad, the generally useless effort on all our parts to introduce some normalcy to our days—are all jumbled in my head like some abstract collage. It was as though I’d been in a trance, standing in place as crises rushed past, indistinct and too often terrifying.

I know I quit my job. I know I was increasingly worried about Bob, afraid he would succumb to the pressures of his involvement in the legal strategies that were an almost daily matter of discussion and to the increasing pressure by the media, anxious to feed on any tidbit he could give them. He was magnificent during these days, supplying the strength he had earlier credited me with having. But his relentless efforts to gather support, to think of ideas for the attorneys, to listen to the advice of well-wishers, to appear on television to rebut the charges Michael and Felos increasingly hurled at him, took their toll. Once, earlier, we had rushed him to the hospital emergency room after he fainted from the stress.
¹
Now I was afraid he’d suffer another, perhaps catastrophic, relapse.

Suzanne had a different kind of stress, having to maintain a cheerfulness she did not feel to protect her daughter, Alex, who used to visit Terri and read to her. I was amazed by Suzanne’s energy, her devotedness to us and to her husband and child, her refusal to let me see her terror in case it added to mine.

And Bobby—well, my gallant son became a lobbyist, fighting for the survival of Terri’s Law through the politicians in Tallahassee and for new protection for Terri from the politicians in Washington. He, too, had now quit his job to devote all his time to his sister. He seemed inspired to me, as though by trying to save Terri he had found his calling.

Through it all, I became more quiet than ever. I still had trouble swallowing or speaking. I prayed for Terri and helped my family as best I could. I tried to stay out of the legal tangles and to focus
on Terri—being with her, caring for her, making things as normal as possible.

We did make one last humanitarian appeal—a proposal to Michael relayed by David Gibbs to Deborah Bushnell and George Felos:

October 26, 2004

Dear Ms. Bushnell and Mr. Felos:

As new lead counsel to the cases surrounding Terri Schiavo, we
are not aware of any recent attempt to resolve this matter among the
family members without continued court intervention. In order to make certain that this avenue of potential resolution is not overlooked, we are providing you with the following proposal from the Schindler
family . . .

The Schindlers’ sole desire in making this proposal is that they be permitted to take their daughter and sister home to care for her within their family. The Schindler family members would take on this responsibility at their own expense. In consideration of your client permitting them to take Terri home, they would be willing to provide him with any legal guarantees he would desire, including the following:

1) The Schindlers would never seek any money from Michael. He could retain any monies or other assets that might remain to him, either from their married life together, from the malpractice awards for himself or for Terri, or any other assets he might have received in the past. They would not seek any financial help from him for any care, therapy, or rehabilitation for Terri.

2) The Schindlers fully understand and appreciate that Michael now has a new life with Jodi and their two children. If he would desire to divorce Terri, the family would sign any necessary legal documents to assure Michael that, upon Terri’s natural death, he would receive any of Terri’s estate that he would inherit were he to remain her husband. Whether or not Michael would choose to pursue a divorce from Terri, the Schindlers would guarantee that he could retain whatever visiting rights he might desire with Terri for the rest of his life.

3) The Schindlers would agree to forgo any and all future legal claims or actions against Michael or against any of his agents in this matter for any reason.

4) The Schindlers would permit Michael’s attorneys to draft any agreement regarding this matter that Michael would desire, including the above referenced terms and any other terms he and his attorneys would find appropriate, excluding payment of Michael’s previous legal fees or costs.

Now that Michael is a father himself, the Schindlers are pleading with him to consider their love for their daughter and to permit them to take over Terri’s care, with their blessings on Michael as he continues to live his own life with his new family.

Please provide a copy of this letter to Michael and respond to us within five days.

The letter was never answered.

And so the time went on. Pat Anderson, her associate Tom Broderson, David Gibbs, his associate Barbara Weller, and other members of the Gibbs Law Firm worked tirelessly on our behalf. David is married with four children, and we felt terrible he wasn’t seeing his family. (We sent a basket of flowers to his wife because he was never home—small compensation.) Both he and Pat gave months solely to Terri’s case, bonding with us, loving us, loving Terri. Goodness knows what it did to their legal practice during that time. They never complained but rather doubled their efforts. “What if we try . . .” “What if we approach . . .” “Is there a loophole that would let us . . .”

But finally all our moral and legal efforts failed. Terri’s feeding tube was removed on March 18, 2005. And another maelstrom, similar to the one in 2003 but far greater in size and volume, formed around us.

We were more than national celebrities; we were—depending on one’s political point of view—martyrs or crackpots. Huge crowds, far larger than the crowds in 2003—crowds larger than any I could imagine—gathered at the hospice and around the odds-and-ends store we once again used as headquarters. It seemed we had literally legions of friends, both famous and not. Each day, we were greeted with banners, signs, shouts, songs, and prayers.

Sean Hannity, the radio and television commentator, came down to St. Petersburg, not only because we were “good copy”—we were on his radio or television program virtually every night for more than a week—but because he honestly believed in our cause. Every day, he was nice enough to spend an hour or so with us before his programs and a similar time afterward, learning about the case and relaying the information to his listeners. When Bobby was lobbying in Washington, Sean called him practically every day for an interview. Glenn Beck, who had been our leading media supporter since 2001, also interviewed us frequently during this period. (So did many others, including Michael Reagan, Drew Mariani and local radio personality John Sipos.) We felt that our story was finally getting out—and that listeners shared our outrage. By the end, Sean was starting to wonder what had happened to Terri the night she collapsed. “There’s something more to this than the mainstream media has been reporting all these years,” he said.

Jesse Jackson joined us for the last few days and prayed with our family. He even went to Tallahassee to talk to Governor Bush to see if there was any way to get the Florida Legislature to pass another bill. “You need three miracles for Terri to perform if she’s to become a saint,” Glenn Beck joked. “Well, we’ve seen the first one. Jesse Jackson and Sean Hannity are in the same room together.”

About a week before the feeding tube was removed, Mel Gibson had put out a press release supporting our family. Now he called Bob to offer support directly. So did Jim Caviezel, who starred in
The Passion
of the Christ
. We heard from Roslyn Carter. We got support from Chuck Norris, Patricia Heaton, Randy Travis, and particularly Pat Boone who has a disabled grandson. We heard that Ralph Nader had expressed his anger at what was happening to Terri. We were told that efforts were being made in Switzerland, the Vatican and Canada to offer Terri political asylum.

“I think everybody saw what was going on,” Bobby said after Terri died. “An innocent, disabled woman was being unjustly starved to death. And when you have people of their stature, and the pope and the president, and the governor and senators and congressmen on Terri’s side, and they are unsuccessful, you understand how powerful the death movement is in our nation.”

After March 18, we didn’t know how much time we had left to save Terri. Twice before, her feeding tube had been removed; both times, it had been reinserted and she seemed no worse. Still, our desperation grew hourly. Not only was it imminent that Terri’s feeding tube was going to be removed, Judge Greer added a new order on March 8. He ordered that Terri could not be provided with food or water by natural means, eliminating any possibility that we could feed Terri by mouth. We knew that unless there was a dramatic change—unless someone of immense power could act on her behalf—Terri was doomed.

Terri’s Law, which Jeb Bush had so willingly signed in 2003, had been declared unconstitutional. Since then, other than his attorneys’ appeals, he had taken no real action. He was still a potential savior, but we were less and less hopeful that he would intervene. If a reprieve was possible, we felt, it would come from Washington.

Not only David Gibbs but a number of other powerful lawyers determined to work at the federal level.

Here’s Bobby’s account:

“Governor Bush’s lawyer, Ken Connor, was involved. And Dr. Robert Destro from Catholic University. David Gibbs, of course. And Burke Balch, a lawyer from National Right to Life. They, and many others, were all working on a bill that could be passed by Congress which could save Terri’s life.

“Obviously it would have to pass both the House and the Senate, and they asked if Suzy and I wanted to go to Washington to lobby for it. You bet we did!

“It was arranged for Suzy and me to lobby with four women from the National Right to Life organization: Megan Dillon, Elizabeth Maier, Dorothy Timbs, and Lori Kehoe, whose tenaciousness made her an invaluable ally. We also had the help of the Dwyer family—Dr. Dwyer, his wife, Linda, and the voice of their disabled son, Christian, who was in a wheelchair. It was extremely difficult for Christian to travel, but he nevertheless felt so strongly about Terri’s situation that he came all the way from Texas to help us convince Congress that Terri needed their help.

“Mr. Connor also met with Suzy and me and introduced us to Senator Mel Martinez and Congressman David Weldon, both Floridians, who were sponsoring a bill in the Senate and the House respectively that would guarantee Terri the right to habeas corpus.
²
If it passed, Terri’s case would be reheard. At the very least, Terri’s feeding tube would be restored, if only temporarily. It seemed to me nonsensical that convicted murderers would have the right of habeas corpus and Terri didn’t.

“Suzanne stayed a day, I the rest of the week, trying to plead our case with congressmen and senators (and their aides) so they would vote for the bill. It was tough going. I said to Suzy, ‘Where’s the press? We’re lobbying these people, trying to get a bill introduced, and we need publicity to get the bill passed.’ I went home dejected, wounded by the disinterest of the people on Capitol Hill.

“And then, suddenly, the media found out about what we were trying to do, and the buzz started. I went back to Washington. This time, the reception was different. ‘Bobby, be ready,’ I was warned. ‘You’re going to get some harsh reactions. Don’t take it personally.’ But in fact, with a few exceptions, I was greeted with respect and often sympathy. What I and the lobbyists were trying to do was to point out that Terri’s case wasn’t just a pro-life issue, but a
disability
issue as well—that Terri’s rights as a disabled person were at stake. Support in the form of faxes and e-mails from disability organizations across the country added to the pressure.

“The habeas corpus bill became problematic and was thrown out.
³
Congressman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, immediately proposed a simpler bill, specifically for Terri, which would afford her the due process in federal court she hadn’t received in state courts.
⁴
The House passed the bill. The Senate passed a different version, which had to go back to the House. The bills had to be reconciled, with Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, instrumental in the negotiations. But by then, most of the House members had already left for Easter vacation.