Her eyes filled and threatened to brim over. Her lower lip quivered, now at the age of 14, much as it had at the age of four when she was upset.##M:[more]## “I’m not sure I’m up to doing, this, mom,” she quavered. “Sure, you’re up to it,” I said in my stern mom voice. “And if you’re not, how are we supposed to put you on a plane by yourself this summer? We’d have to think twice before sending you abroad for three weeks.” That threat was enough to make her dry her eyes, square her shoulders, and rise to the challenge.
The challenge was going into New York by herself for the very first time. A milestone in a teenager’s life, fraught for her with perils both real and imagined. I was putting Katie on the 2:42 train out of Princeton Junction. From Penn Station she would have to walk three blocks over and eleven blocks north to meet her father at his office at 42nd and Madison so they could go out for dinner and see “Rent.”
We did think twice about sending her alone but we didn’t really have any options. Moreover, we knew she could do it. I tutored her with a map of Manhattan, the logical sequencing of avenues and streets. I reminded her not to talk to strangers and to walk briskly, with purpose. She had her cell phone and she was to check in with me the minute she got to Penn and then the minute she got to her father’s office. Mommy would let her go at one end. Daddy would be waiting at the other.
It took me back to a time when she was learning to walk. I would hold her up on her unsteady legs at one end of the family room and Bill would call to her from the other side. Come on, darling, you can do it, we would coo at her, as she stood up, fell, stood up and plopped down again. Then, finally, summoning all the strength and courage she could in her tiny body, letting go of my hand and toddling over to Daddy, a look of surprise and victory lighting up her face. Good job, you did it, we’re so proud of you!
I had a flashback when I uttered pretty much exactly the same words when she called me from Bill’s office. Good job, you did it, we’re so proud of you! For a parent, learning how to let go is part of helping your child establish each stage of independence, whether they’re learning how to walk, going into the city for the first time alone, going away for the summer or eventually off to college. Each time they go a little bit farther, but they’ll always come back, even though eventually it might only be for a visit.
Which brings me to the Terri Schiavo case. I don’t want to get into the politics of it because there’s been too much already. What I will say is I understand completely where her parents are coming from. If I had been lying in that hospital bed for 15 years as Schiavo had, for myself, I would want my loved ones to let me go in peace.
But take me out of that situation and put in any one of my three children. If there was one in one million, one in 10 million, one in 100 million chance that on the day after the 15th year he or she would wake up and say, “hi, mom and dad, where have you been,” wouldn’t I want to cling to that hope? After all, don’t people play the lottery every day on chances just about as infinitesimal? And, often, defying the law of averages, doesn’t somebody win? Not always, but enough to fuel the hope of thousands of more to play the lottery again and again?
Why wouldn’t Schiavo’s parents have wanted to grasp at any chance of recovery, no matter how small? Isn’t so much about parenthood about hope? I hope the baby is healthy, I hope she does well in school, I hope she has friends, I hope she’ll get there okay, I hope she’ll get the job, I hope he’ll treat her well, I hope she’ll recover and come back to us.
Long after the Schiavo case has faded from the headlines, the questions that it has raised will linger. There are questions about the definition of family. Since Schiavo and her husband were still legally married, he was defined as her family and had custodial rights. But shouldn’t he have relinquished those rights and surrendered his role as husband when he began a relationship with another woman and had children with her? Shouldn’t those rights have gone back to her parents? A divorce can end a marriage and dissolve a family, but it is impossible to sever a relationship between parent and child.
Much as the abortion debate has revolved around the definition of life and when it begins, so has the Schiavo case pushed new frontiers about the definition of death and to what extent science should be used to hold it back and for how long. Before technology allowed the issues to get so murky there was no room for debate. If you got pregnant, you had the baby, unless God intervened in some way. And at the end of life, there were no feeding tubes, no breathing machines, and no media circus raising questions about the quality of life, what it should be, and when the plug should be pulled.
When I let my children go, I know they’re going to come back. Terri Schiavo’s parents couldn’t let go, because they knew she couldn’t come back. They gave her life. Why wouldn’t they fight as hard as they could to save it?
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