PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Quiet is returning to this nondescript suburban enclave where Terri Schiavo died, as her grieving parents and husband wrestled with the enormous task of trying to return normalcy to their extraordinary lives.
Schiavo died 13 days after the controversial removal of her feeding tube, which followed seven years of vicious court battles between her husband, Michael Schiavo, who argued that his severely brain-damaged wife would have wanted to die, and her parents, who believed she was aware and wanted to prolong her life.
A six-hour autopsy, including full X-rays, was performed Friday on the body of Terri Schiavo but the results may not be released for several weeks, the state medical examiner for Pinellas County reported Friday.
Outside Hospice House Woodside, where Schiavo spent her final years, city crews collected discarded signs and dismantled the bright orange plastic fencing that kept out hundreds who had stood vigil, under a media glare, during Schiavo’s last days.
The few demonstrators who remained shifted the focus of their prayers to the ailing pope. Inside, hospice workers and patients welcomed the sorely missed calm. “We didn’t like the drums,” said Ed Emerson, 71, a Woodside patient.
Meanwhile, friends and relatives speculate that Michael Schiavo might move out of Florida, partly to start anew, but mostly to protect his fiancee and their two toddlers from ongoing threats to their lives.
“Mike’s probably going to have to leave Florida. I doubt a lot is keeping him there,” said a close friend, Russ Hyden, who has also received threatening phone calls. “But it doesn’t matter where he goes. His face has been spread in newspapers all over the country and the world.”
Michael Schiavo’s fiancee, Jodi Centonze, was emotionally shattered by Terri Schiavo’s death, Hyden said.
“After all those yeas, for the eventuality to happen, to deal with it is pretty traumatic,” Hyden said. Marriage was the last thing on the couple’s minds, Hyden said, but he speculated that the couple might move to Pennsylvania, where Michael Schiavo grew up and where most of his older brothers still live.
In Levittown, Pa., Michael Schiavo’s sister-in-law Karen Schiavo has steeled herself to face the backlash against her family’s suddenly infamous name. After being deluged with harassing phone calls, she finally instructed her two teenage sons last week to stop telling people their full names.
“I’m hoping harassers are just blowing off steam, and their bark is worse than their bite, but there’s this question mark, so that’s the scary part,” she said.
As for Michael Schiavo, Karen Schiavo could not guess how he would begin to patch together a new life. She also was not sure when he would return to his job as a nurse at the Pinellas County Jail.
Schiavo’s body also is ready for release to her husband, Michael, but the medical examiner would not comment Friday on when that will happen.
Terri Schiavo’s body will be cremated and the ashes interred in her husband’s Philadelphia-area plot, something her own parents unsuccessfully opposed in court.
In St. Petersburg, Schiavo’s parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, quietly planned a Catholic funeral Mass for Tuesday evening. With the Schindlers’ hugely publicized battle behind them, friends worry that the family will have trouble settling back into their private lives, which have been on hold since 1990, when Terri Schiavo collapsed.
“For the past 15 years, going to see Terri and working for the cause of keeping Terri alive has been their main focus,” said Joe Shannon, a family friend. “They never, ever fathomed that it would go this far, that it would get so much national attention, and most of all, that she would die.”
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