Please keep Bob Schindler in your prayers

Bob Schindler, who fought valiantly for years to save his brain-damaged daughter, Terri Schiavo, from an inhumane death by dehydration has suffered a stroke and is hospitalized in Florida.

Bob and his wife, Mary, became my friends when we were called upon to speak publicly together about the then-pending legal struggles to save Terri in Florida and Robert Wendland here in California. Bob and Mary, like Florence Wendland, were devoted parents who only wanted to honor what they believed to be the wishes of their daughter, a devout Catholic who, they still insist, would never have chosen to die the way she ultimately did.

I will never forget the evening I spent with Bob and Mary at the 2005 Life Legal Defense Fund annual fundraising dinner where they spoke. (See Unremarkable Acts of Kindness, December 14, 2005.) They were exhausted — mentally, physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually — but determined to forge on in an attempt to prevent other families from suffering the kind of tragic turmoil theirs did.

You can send good wishes, addressed as follows:

Robert Schindler
c/o The Terri Schiavo Foundation
562 Central Ave. # 2
St. Petersburg, FL 33707

This is a good time to share with you the film about the Wendland case produced by the Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center Center for Research and Training in Humane and Ethical Care in 2002. Not all of the facts are presented accurately, but, overall, the cautionary message is appropriate and well-presented.