Sun - March 20, 2005

"He looks bad," the attending physician said. "Your father's blood pressure was through the roof when he arrived, and he couldn't breathe. Frankly, he had all the signs of someone who was going to die. We don't know yet whether there's brain damage."

He paused before continuing.

"It's possible that he will recover. It's also possible that he may not wake up. We have to wait and see. In the meantime, it's important for you and your family to prepare for all the possibilities. Did he prepare a healthcare directive?"

No, I said. He had no living will.

"Well then, you need to think back—and to think very carefully—about any conversations you or your family may have had with your dad. Did he tell any one of you that he would or wouldn't have wanted extraordinary measures to keep him alive? You don't have to tell me now, and let's hope you don't have to. But think about it."

Forty-eight hours later, my father surprised us by awakening from his coma. To me, that forty-eight hours measures how close—how unbearably close—I came to standing in Michael Schiavo's shoes.

By now, almost everyone knows the story of Terri Schiavo, the young woman who lies in a permanent vegetative state at a Florida nursing home. We've heard conflicting testimonials about her prospect for improvement. Perhaps we've formed opinions about her husband, Michael Schiavo's, loyalty or greed in suing to let her die because this is what he says she wanted, or about her family's optimism or selfishness in fighting to maintain her feeding tube.

I don't know any better than you do whether Terri Schiavo preferred death to the prospect of permanent catatonia; she never memorialized her choice. I can only surmise that no woman would wanted her loved ones to suffered a decade of anguish arguing about her wishes, that no woman would have wanted her spouse of five years to be estranged from her parents, and that no woman would have wanted 13 years of litigation to decide her fate.

Neither my father nor Terri Schiavo expected to suffer a stroke, but my father got a chance to learn from the experience. Once he recovered, he executed a healthcare directive stating whether and when we should prolong his life. When he is incapacitated again, his family's grief will not be compounded by the need to make assumptions about his intentions. We'll know what he wanted.

If Terri Schiavo's tragedy stands for one thing, it is this: We all have choices. Making and documenting the hardest ones can be one of our most important legacies.