Making sense of it all

I guess there's just no getting around being sucked into the vortex surrounding Terri Schiavo. This story is inevitably compelling, in a horrible sort of way, because ultimately each of us tries to put ourselves into her shoes, and we're unable to do so.

What we are, how we think, THAT we think, what we see, hear, and experience, is so much the result of electrical impulses in our brains. Most of us have no understanding of how it all works. We wake in the morning, we eat, take care of ourselves, go to work, process inputs, produce outputs, go to sleep, dream -- and never think much about it.

After weeks of being bombarded with the haunting face of someone who is either trapped in a body that doesn't work, or who IS now just a body that functions as a body but nothing else, it kind of forces us to confront just what it is that makes us human.

It's so easy to just assume that there's some great white Alpha male with a beard in the sky who molds us out of clay and micromanages each of our lives. This sort of all-powerful parental authority figure is a concept that at least makes sense to us. But looking at the vacant stare of Terri Schaivo can't help but call that notion into question. After all, what kind of micromanager would be cruel enough to do this to someone? And why on earth would we worship something that cruel?

On the other hand, the idea that something as simple as loss of circulation can cause all that makes us human to burn out that quickly, that easily, well, it makes us all kind of insignificant, doesn't it?

Let's face it, folks: Terri Schiavo makes us uncomfortable. I don't care if you're Tom DeLay or me or Michael Schiavo or anyone: There's something weird about this kind of "present absence", and understanding it is like trying to understand death. Either you put it into some kind of model you can understand, like "heaven" -- a Club Med for the righteous -- or you put it out of your mind because it's Just Too Big.

But for the many people trying to sort out what's happening here in a futile effort to get to "the truth", whatever that may be, there's no better resource than Abstract Appeal. Matt Conigliaro has a wealth of material, including a surprising report (Adobe Acrobat required) by a Guardian Ad Litem for Terri Schiavo that debunks the notion that the last fifteen years have been a nonstop battle between Michael Schiavo and his in-laws. This report, which details the personal, medical, and legal history of the case, is pretty astonishing stuff, and definitely worth reading.

I've tried not to get into too many discussions on this case, mostly because each of us comes to this story with our own baggage. I can relate to this woman's battle with her weight, and with the cruel irony that she only reached her desired weight after becoming bulimic -- and paid for it with her very selfhood. Another person might relate to the disability aspect. Someone else may be affected by what may seem to be a form of abandonment, in which her husband has moved on to create a new life. But the fact of the matter is that over 99% of us do not know these people, and do not know this family.

Michael Schiavo may have been a lousy husband. Maybe he picked on his wife about her weight. Maybe what started out as a simple desire to please her husband turned into an obsession on Terri Schiavo's part, one with a terribly high price. Maybe he HAS lost patience with her parents' refusal to let go. Maybe he should have waited to produce children with someone else until the situation was resolved. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe the Schindlers have sold their souls to a bunch of cynical snake-oil salesmen who care not a fig for their pain, but only for political gain for themselves.

There's only one thing I DO know, and that's the one thing any of us know: Not one of us would trade places with any of these people for a minute. Let's not lose track of the fact that this is a nightmare for this family...and that there are many other families in this country dealing with similar nightmares every day. I'm sure that the Schindlers love their daughter and they believe they're doing the right thing by fighting for what they see to be life and hope. I'm also sure that Michael Schiavo similarly believes he's fighting for what his wife would want if she were able to communicate it. It's not for us to judge any of them until and unless we take a walk in their shoes.