A Vicious Cycle

WHILE TERRI'S STRUGGLE to live has ended, the bitter feud between her parents and husband rages on. This tragedy is so depressingly and dauntingly never-ending.

Hours after Terri Schiavo was "allowed to die", Michael Schiavo is reportedly in need of a feeding tube himself - well, apparently. Two days later, on America Online, a California woman threatened to kill him and Judge George Greer for their deadly decisions. There was a bitter divide over her funeral and burial. The judge granted Schiavo permission to have his wife cremated and her ashes buried in Pennsylvania.

Personally, I dislike everything in life involving the severance - in anger and unforgiveness - of attachments through which the medium of sympathy and understanding once flowed. If the dead could speak, I'd like to think that Terri is saying:

"I have gone beyond your small concerns.

I know now what you cannot know."

Despite the bitterly disputed outcome, who can possibly not agree that "Terri had a right to have her last and final moments on this earth be experienced in a spirit of love and not acrimony"?

a vicious cycle

Now is definitely a time for words of reconciliation and of healing. It is time to break the vicious cycle. This can happen when we cease holding our breaths for what goes around to come around.

This unequalled lesson on forgiveness, though indisputably tough to follow, is nevertheless instructive and without doubt, an inspiration in seeking peace - for ourselves and the deceased.

Rest in peace, Terri Schiavo.