To the editor,

The plight of Terri Schiavo has left our nation with many questions that need to be answered.

As a mother who has buried a child and as a granddaughter who was legal guardian of my grandmother after she fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease.

I feel that I can empathize with Terri’s family.

I cannot in my worst nightmares imagine being in the presence of my grandmother or my son and watching them dying of thirst and being legally restrained by guards enforced by the courts from ministering the most basic of needs; a cup of water.

I believe that we as a people are left with the question do we want a nation of people who in the spirit of Mother Theresa minister to the needs of those who are vulnerable or the spirit of Dr. Jack Kevorkian.

To many Terri and others like her are viewed as useless eaters, but to those of us who have cared for a loved one in her condition she is my opportunity to be conformed to Christ’s image as I serve someone who cannot help themselves.

Lastly, how can Michael Schiavo be married to two women?

He has been living with another women for years and has children by this common law wife.

For this man to represent himself in court and elsewhere as her husband makes a mockery of marriage and our vow to love and to cherish in sickness and in health till death do us part.

To add insult to injury is to state that he will cremate her immediately and bury her ashes in his family plot far from the loving parents who cherish and love her is heartbreaking to watch.

How can a court take hearsay as its only evidence in a death penalty case?

Who is this judge in Florida who has every branch of our government bowing at his feet?

May God save our Constitutional Government before it is to late.

Deborah W. Giles

Montgomery