DENIED

Terri schiavos parents were denied again, as another review of the case fell flat and the feeding tube remains in the autoclave (or wherever they put those nasty things when not in use). The parents have appealed to a circuit court in Atlanta and will take it all the way to the supreme court if they have to.
To them I say, I hope you can do it in 10 to 14 days. Because unless that god guy you keep throwing around chooses to do that miracle he's been hemming and hawing about for FIFTEEN YEARS your daughter will pass from this mortal coil to the glory of heaven and all that it allows, or if you don't believe, she will simply be dead...food for worms.
If anything, this case has people talking about these issues of life and death and our ability to prolong life. Back in the day, when something catastrophic happened like a stroke or heart failure god was on the front line with no back up like we have today. God would either step in and save your ass, or he would take you by the hand and lead you through that light to paradise. A more pragmatic view would be you either made it or you took a dirt nap depending on your constitution.
But these days it's not so cut and dried. We have the technology to preserve life, or rather the body. Take my dad for example, when he first had his stroke we were told he would die in 24 hours. He didn't, thanks in great part to medical intervention. Nobody in the family wanted him to die, to be taken from us. Nine years later and after amputations for gangrene, a feeding tube, a couple of other strokes and an increasing lack of connection and recognition he died. But only after his 6th or 7th bout with pneumonia.
So here's the timeline...Stroke...coma...emerging from coma...rehab...another stroke...gangrene in toe...leg amputated...starts choking on food...tube inserted...pneumonia/ near death...over and over again until he died. Did god come down from the heavens and heal my dad? No. Did I think he would? No. But I wished he would. But he didn't, apparently he was too busy rendering the image of his son and daughter in law on tortillas and grilled cheese sandwiches and cheetos to pay any mind to my dad.
Common sense should tell you that a brain stem stroke is a sure sign that god could give a shit about you and you should be getting that pat in the face with a shovel post haste. Why would god keep my dad alive after that stroke? Is god a bastard with a drinking problem? (his son could turn water into wine, that should tell you someting) Or was he trying to teach us a lesson? And if he was, what was the lesson? That his wife could endure a cancer that took her life andthe loss of her husband and main support? That I would learn the humility of caring for my mom during her last days while simultaneously having the opportunity to spoon feed my dad while admiring his diaper? Was it a bet with some other supreme being somewhere else that his creation was tougher than theirs?
Or is it just a cluster fuck of available technology, mythology, theology and beaucracy? I think maybe so. I miss my parents, I wish they were still here. But they aren't. God let me down, medicine let me down. But I have to go on, and I have. With a diminished faith in both sides of the fence.
People die and that's just the way it is.