Current Events.
This is not a post about me, or my girls - just so you know.

I am letting the world know my opinion about the Terri Schiavo case. Well, maybe not the world, but at least my little blog version of the world. No, just so you know, you're right - you didn't ask for my opinion - but I am offering it up anyway - blue plate special style.

I used to work for Hospice. For two years, between the ripe old ages of 23 to 24, I served as a "volunteer coordinator" for a local hospice organization in Macon. My job? R ecruit and train volunteers from the community to visit with our hospice patients and families - to offer support, encouragement, or anything else the medical staff couldn't provide. In my two short years of working there, I learned more about life and death than you can possibly imagine, and worked with some of the most compassionate people on the planet... of this you can be sure. I shed more tears, laughed harder, and smiled more than I have ever in my lifetime. The patients and I met changed my life - every single one.

Days were spent traveling from home to home, facility to facility, chatting with patients and families, or - just chatting, if the patient couldn't respond... it's an awkward thing - to chat with someone who can't chat back - but you get used to it.... it's also a horrible thing - to find yourself "trying" to encourage the family member of someone who lays before them dying. I didn't realize until I started to work there, just how controversial the idea of "hospice," truly is... people would do that cock their head to the side thing and say, "oh, how awful that must be," when they found out what I did for a living. Truly, it was awful - on some days you go home crying and angry with God - however, it was also wonderful - on other days you go home peaceful, and giving God a grateful and faithful smile.


I have seen a man who committed suicide, who could not live with his pain... I have seen a man, 32 years old, dying from cancer, and the wife who married him, knowing he was ill, wiping sweat from his brow.... I have seen the grandmother, the grandfather, the mother of young daughters, the husband and father of four... I have seen them all... trying to get right with God - just waiting... waiting to go home.

The idea of life and death is one long since debated. The "Right to Life" group - conservative republicans who believe abortion should be illegal in any form - have made their mark on the world... conservative, religious republicans, of which I am one - have a hellbent view of life and liberty - which I admire, but truly disagree with.... can abortion ever be illegal? Of course, as a mother of two small daughters - a teenager who made an appointment at a clinic to have her first pregnancy terminated (ok - hence Sarah Beth - you can see I chickened out on that one) - I feel that "life" is God's most perfect gift - and should never be taken from someone without consent of that person. Life. What an amazing word. However, even as a "pro-lifer" this doens't mean I am "anti abortion." My bottom line regarding the subject? If you make abortion illegal, will that stop abortions? No. It will simply start a new and more scary phenomenon... back alley abortions, hidden abortions - that will end the lives of more babies and mothers than any legalized abortions could ever. Making abortion illegal will never solve the problem of abortion.

And, really - that's what the Schiavo case has become. A platform for the religious right to demand the "right to life" for Terri. Sad? Of course. However, much like my hospice patients - I am reminded that this decision - one that is, however unfortunate - is made by her husband... her legal guardian. Just like making abortion illegal - this is not a case that can be decided, or changed, by the "legal" system. This is a personal and private matter, one that I certainly want to be sure the government is NOT involved in when relating to my personal family members.
Is Michael Schiavo "starving" his wife? Isn't he calm and unemtional? No. He's a man that has come to peace with letting his wife go - and all WE can do is pray that his intentions were just and from the heart. There is only One who truly knows Michael's heart. I don't want the government, the Supreme Court, the House, and certainly not Jeb Bush, making such decisions on my behalf... much less my own family's.

Heartbreaking for her parents? Yes. I can't even think about it being my own child without tears welling up in my eyes. We can pray for them as well... and wish them peace and the comfort of thoughts of heaven - and their daughter in a place where feeding tubes and the like aren't even known ... where health and prosperity are abundant.