Hey kids! Let's all take the modernity quiz!

Q: What's worse than your adulterous son-in-law desecrating your daughter's grave?

A: Watching him have her starved to death while you stand by helplessly because those in authority worship death or are cowards.


The inscription on the grave marker belonging to Terri Schiavo that reads "I kept my promise" is simply a message from her husband to his dead wife and is not meant to anger her family, the woman's brother-in-law said Tuesday.

Brian Schiavo told The Associated Press that he and a handful of other people attended the burial of Terri Schiavo's remains on a rainy Monday afternoon at a Clearwater cemetery. Others present included her husband, Michael Schiavo, her other brother-in-law, Steve Schiavo, and a priest.

But the woman's parents criticized Michael Schiavo for not notifying them about the burial beforehand and by inscribing "I kept my promise" on the bronze marker. Michael Schiavo had said he promised his wife he would not keep her alive artificially -- a critical element of the acrimonious legal battle over her end-of-life wishes.

"That was something he was feeling," Brian Schiavo said Tuesday. "It would have been very easy for him to walk away from this thing. But they had as promise to each other and he stuck by it."

Michael Schiavo, who received possession of his wife's remains after her death March 31, had said her ashes would be buried at a family plot in Pennsylvania. But she was instead buried at Sylvan Abbey Memorial Park in Clearwater, near Michael Schiavo's home.


"I guess maybe he wanted to be closer to her," Brian Schiavo said. "It's just his decision to do so."

On the grave marker, Michael Schiavo also listed Feb. 25, 1990, as the date his wife "Departed this Earth." On that date, Terri Schiavo collapsed and fell into what most doctors said was an irreversible vegetative state.

Schiavo actually died March 31, nearly two weeks after her feeding tube was removed by court order. The grave marker lists that date as when Schiavo was "at peace."