Mar. 21, 2005 - 19:59 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Enigma

The Schiavo case now has our federal government in action. While other matters of state molder and ferment.

As far as Mrs. Schiavo is concerned, all I can do is put myself in her position and wonder, and combine that with seeing my mother in law suffer through her last days with cancer, my wifes younger sister go the same route, my brother-in-law's wife go into a vegetative state with a bleed to the brain, and her family having to decide what to do. I remember my Dad in a wheel chair all day every day, unable to move on his own and seeing our son fight his last battle with cancer last year.

I have given instructions to my family and it is in my living will, and as well I wrote instructions to my HMO to pull the plug (brashly stated) and let me go if I am in a state even near that.

Now putting myself in her body, thinking about laying there 15 years, unable to move, get up, walk around, unable to communicate with anyone. Knowing that with lack of exercise (even though range of motion exercises are given by attendants and attendants work to prevent bed sores, my body would be unable to do anything on its own for years if I should miraculously come back to the world. I would be fifteen years older, fifteen years weaker.

Personally, I would prefer that I be planted with due ceremony, my family come to a closure and then go on with their own lives rather than spend money and time trying to keep my hulk alive.

How would I react if it were Heather, my wife ? First off, we are not rich and catastrophic things such as that would not be covered, nor could I financially take care of it either. Nor could any of the family, alone or together come up with the money to keep Heather alive indefinitely.

I am her husband, but there are three of our children who would be involved in decisions. I don't think Heather would want to go in a case like that. Yet I can see our kids, two who are approaching old age spending the rest of their lives on tenterhooks and spending the hours and days of visitation to her body in hospital. I would think that a consensus would have to be arrived at with me and our children before any action would be taken.

One other thing that is still vivid in my memory, our oldest daughter attempted suicide, unsuccessfully. The bullet rattling around in her skull. She was in a coma for a long time, months. We worked our jobs and went to hospital to sit with and talk to her, letting her know we were with her and loved her.

The doctors had told us that they felt she would never be able to return to society as a functioning being like the rest of us.

Our oldest son was at hospital in the evenings with us for a long time. I remember one night he and I were in the snack bar, having an evening bite, I told son, "I am praying for her, but I'm not sure how my prayers should be answered, that she be healed or that she be left go to her maker." I guess I answered my own dilemma, it was in his hands.

She made a partial recovery, cannot speak but communicates in her own ways, will not learn AMSLAN but helps where needed at the home she is in. She is happy, knows us and is glad to see us when we visit.

It is hard for me to go back into those times in our lives, gut wrenching. I knew all along that a choice like that my son-in-law and his kids made would possibly be up to me and mine to decide someday, and my guts knot up. Whatever, all I can do is face up to the situation and pray that I make the right decision.

For myself, if only my body is alive and I am not in it - - - - - I want to go home where I belong to a room in one of his mansions and let mine family live their own lives and raise their own families without the worry and time spent visiting someone who really isn't there.

One last thing, Heather's sister is in the terminal stages of Alzheimer's. We visit her often, talk to her, Heather pets her and hugs her. She is getting hospice care and it is just a matter of time. Her affect is flatline, nothing seems to reach her, her body is here but I think she is not.

Typing to myself and trying to think about the whole of life, it is still one huge Enigma . . . . . . . . . . .

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