PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — Through good times and bad, the Schiavos and the Schindlers stood together.
When money got tight after Terri and Michael Schiavo were wed, her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, made room in their home near Philadelphia for the young couple.
When the Schindlers moved to Florida two years later, the kids followed so they could all remain close. Michael called his in-laws "Mom and Dad." They treated him like a son and felt fortunate to have him in the family.
Novelist's name -- An article in Sunday's Section A detailing the rift between Michael Schiavo and his wife's parents misspelled the last name of novelist Danielle Steel as Steele.
They stood together again in 1990, when Terri had a heart attack and permanent brain damage. The family gathered at her bedside, praying for a miracle.
"Without him there is no way I could have survived all this," Mary Schindler said in court testimony, recalling that her son-in-law was a source of strength in the days after her daughter's collapse. "We were in it together."
They still spend hours at Terri Schiavo's side, trying to comfort the 41-year-old woman who is near death at Woodside Hospice here. But Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers are never in the small room at the same time. They have not spoken in 12 years.
The family unity ruptured in 1993, when a dispute broke out over how to spend a malpractice award, friends say. That was followed by a bigger fight over Michael's decision to let Terri die by withdrawing the feeding tube that kept her alive.
Since then, anger has grown on both sides.
"There is only one rule in how we get to spend time with Terri," said her uncle, Mike Tammaro, returning from a recent visit to her in the hospice. "It's a matter of staying away from [Michael], something we have to do here every single day."
For his part, Michael Schiavo, 41, has said he is honoring Terri Schiavo's wishes in disconnecting her feeding tube. He criticizes the Schindlers' opposition, saying in a recent television interview: "Fifteen years. You've got to come to grips with it sometime."
His brother, Scott, has stronger words for the Schindlers: "The attack that these people have made on Michael's decency is outrageous. There is no possibility that the differences between them can ever be healed."
How did it come to this? How did a family disagreement -- not unlike those thousands of families wrestle with -- turn into a seemingly endless and very public feud?
"Most families find common ground," said Pam Ellis, a former nursing home aide who has joined the protesters massing each day in front of the hospice. "But these people haven't come close."
