Terry Schiavo's Karma

I just wanted to keep Terry Schiavo out of the whole mess. Had she not suffered enough already without even knowing it?

I remember turning ten. It was momentous. Not only would it take two whole hands to mime my age but it also deserved its own word. I was a decade old. It was then that I began recapitulating the everyday goings-on in my life on a daily basis. I did not want to lose a moment to neglect on my part. I figured otherwise what is the point of taking the time to live it in the first place. I believe I am still right in my thinking.

Soon after, I began writing down my daily happenings as a lark, without exaggeration; more as a reporter. Dates and times became my serendipitous hallmark. "Tim, where were we when John Belushi died?"

"When we found out he had died we were in Bunny's Saloon; Dip, me, and a fellow acting class student, with the last name of Wilson. It was early evening, March 5, 1982. I was having the hot mussels." This sort of recall occasionally freaks people. I don't care. As I once told my mother, the Queen of Revisionism, "What's the point of living a moment if you are only to forget it a moment later." Of course, this I said to a genetic descendent of Alzheimer's.

I would say that, at the time, when Terry Schiavo was between a Bible and a Borscht Belt, my marriage was disintegrating faster than a witness list at a Baltimore gang murder trial, but that was nothing more than a pathetic attempt at HOPE. Being a prisoner of the Don't-Ever-Give-Up mentality, newly released, I now realize that my "marriage", actually, at that time, was already done. Only I didn't know it. Everyone my wife worked with knew it. Her entire family knew it (at least, those so incredibly bored with their own existences, encouraging her to leave me in pursuit of her European bliss.) And, thanfully, Karma knew it. Karma is my 10 year-old dog.

Looking back I suppose I should have seen it in their eyes and their conciliatory free drinks. Her "boyfriend" certainly did, if he even knew she was married. At that time, my marriage was emotionally over (except our neuroses still clung to one another). My marriage was physically over (except we still held hands, kissed, and had sex). My marriage was psychologically over (except we still...we still...still loved one another). However, I was not yet over the woman responsible for freeing me from doubt, self reprisal, and me. And what about Terry Schiavo? Why did she have to suffer so and deserve to become a sideshow freak? Why does anyone?

Sara said, "I have to go. He's already bought the tickets."

Sara has been one of the all-time greatest rationalisers. She flew away to Germany the day Terry Schiavo's plug was pulled by her erstwhile husband. Nothing concerning Terry's relationship with her husband mattered anymore. She was in a permanent vegetative state and no amount of parental HOPE and love would reverse this fact, nor correct the unmarriage after 10 years of her continuing condition.

I was to be counted on to take care of the children after so many years of already having done so. Gripe: Six out of seven nights I would put the kids to bed and tuck them in (after having cooked two dinners), following up when they wanted water, a hug, reassurance, a bottle, a burping, a parent. Sara complemented me continually about the fact that I was a better parent than her. What does that mean? It's right up there with I make better peanut butter sandwiches than her. I once tried to arrange to have Saturday mornings to sleep in and she'd have Sundays. You got it. She had both after only two weeks. Sara ruled our relationship. Like a woman in a coma demanding fluids and clean sheets and not to be unplugged. Sara manipulated what I allowed to become a lopsided partnership. Occasionally, now and then, she'll tell me she hates me and doesn't want to talk to me anymore. "Why couldn't you compromise more for me?" God, I wish every second of our time together had been filmed, like in the movie Defending Your Life. I could refute her lies and humble myself with my own. I am so imperfect. I am so human. I was so in love and so willing to leave my instincts behind when they were screaming DON'T DO IT! whatever IT was.

Anyway, Sara left for Germany the same day Terry Schiavo's plug was unplugged and began starving slowly to death. The President tried one of his religious I'm-not-a-drunk-idiot-but-a-sober-idiot maneuvers, involving Congress to interfere with a private family matter. Even his pig-nosed baby brother, once again, got into the mix down in Florida. America told them, this time, sit down and shut up. I was still looking to acquire such nads.

Weird. I just had recall of Donna Kearny's kiss. We were 13 at the time. Donna was the finest feline in the litter. She tasted like a toy H&O train's exhaust. Weird. That's how the mind works, I suppose. When in an ugly place bring some beauty along in your mind. This kiss came two days after her boyfriend had been killed by a train on a snowy winter's night.

As Sara cavorted in Munich for 12 days Terry Schiavo had become one of the most famous people in America, and she didn't even realize it. Terry's body slowly died, reluctantly receding into life's scrap heap. The debates of morality and ethics and scientific standards raged, while everybody's lives continued. On one of the 12 days I watched my son and daughter, Caleb and Isobel, playing in the yard together. It was a warm, early Spring's evening. He showed her how velvety soft moss is and the finer particulars of handling a soccer ball. Their mother was in Germany enjoying her "intellectual" relationship while Terry Schiavo was dying, dead, or both. Fifty years will have erased all of this.

I was deep into Othello with my Prep sophomores: "O curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours, And not their appetites!" I was attempting to finish up my Masters at SHU, missing assignments and classes, taking care of the kids, commuting 110 miles a day, coordinating temporary care for the kids in the mornings and early afternoons, cleaning, cooking, looking at houses, making offers (four kids and a dog?!), none ever responded to, quasi-packing, TV, imbibing, missing Sara, pressure, talking, writing, the kids, looking at more houses, scrambling, negotiating, the pastor and his wife (Jim and Miss Karen), Isobel's teachers, Colleen and Dawn, warmth and sunshine, correcting papers, sweating, the kids, cleaning, clothes washing and folding, thinking hard, a lot, constantly, bought a new vacuum, and one day I went hiking with Karma at Washington Crossing Park. I figured it was safe to remove the leash. As soon as I did she was bolting and yelping after some white-tailed deer, running far and away until her yelps could no longer be heard. "She's gone," I muttered, staving the approach of tears. "I'll never find her again." I jogged in the direction she had run, remaining cosmically circumspect, and loving the irony of a 42 year-old man screaming "Karma!" over and over to an empty, grey forest on a sunny day, the echo returning "Karma."

Over an hour later I returned to the place where Karma had originally bolted and there she was, panting, shaking with exhaustion, glad to see me with a look on her face of "Where the hell have you been?"

Sara returned from Germany the next day; the same day the most famous person in America, Terry Schiavo, succumbed to the throes of starvation. Karma. Kill me if I'm ever already dead.