Schiavo parents angered by ‘unkind’ gravestone

TERRI Schiavo’s husband buried her cremated remains, inscribing on her bronze grave marker “I kept my promise”.

The inscription inflamed Ms Schiavo’s parents, who had waged a long legal battle to keep their severely brain-damaged daughter alive. They also complained they had not been notified about Monday’s service.

Michael Schiavo - who said he promised his wife he would not keep her alive artificially - also listed on the bronze grave marker February 25, 1990, as the date his wife “Departed this Earth”.

On that date, Ms Schiavo collapsed and fell into what most doctors said was an irreversible vegetative state.

Ms Schiavo actually died on March 31 of this year, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed by court order. The gravestone lists that date as when Ms Schiavo was “at peace”.

David Gibbs, an attorney for her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, decried the words on the gravestone.

“Obviously, that’s a real shot and another unkind act toward a grieving mom and dad,” Mr Gibbs said.

Two days after Terri Schiavo’s death, the 41-year-old was cremated and her husband, Michael Schiavo, was given possession of her remains. The husband had said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. But his attorney, George Felos, said in a statement the service and interment had taken place at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park in Clearwater, Florida.

The statement did not explain why Mr Schiavo, who lives near Clearwater, decided to keep his wife’s remains in Florida.

Ms Schiavo’s parents had opposed her cremation. Services for Ms Schiavo had already been conducted in Gulfport, Florida where her parents live, and in Pennsylvania, where she grew up.

The Schindlers’ attorney said the family was notified by fax only after the service, when the family had already started getting calls from reporters.

Mr Felos’s statement said the Schindlers were notified of the service and burial.

A pond and fountain also mark Ms Schiavo’s grave, where the flat bronze gravestone was festooned with flowers yesterday evening.

Ms Schiavo collapsed in 1990 after a chemical imbalance caused her heart to stop. Her husband said she never would have wanted to be kept alive in what court-appointed doctors called a persistent vegetative state with no hope of recovery.

Her parents, however, fought to keep her alive in a seven-year battle that engulfed the courts, Congress, and the White House and divided Americans.