Wake up America . . . the alarm clock just went off and we keep turning over and going back to sleep. There’s an “uprisin’ on the horizon” and we refuse to face it. Sleeping through it might make it easier, but the end result will be devastating.

We’ve had a lightning bolt cut through the very core of our foundation forming a crack so deep we could topple by our weight of indifference. This ship is listing badly; so tilted we may never be uprighted again.

Our love affair with America is “breaking apart” because our foundation is cracking. The winds of hatred are blowing hard; the thunderous protests have challenged our will, and the disease of apathy is eating away at our very root system.

Go ahead and tell me I’m crazy. I’d actually rather hear that than to believe what I know to be true. I can handle my portended lunacy, but the reality of what I see happening before my very eyes is worse than a Shakespearean tragedy.

Last week was one of the most painful times of my life. I have never been on such a roller coaster of emotion and I can’t seem to get beyond it. That’s an admission I’m not proud to proclaim, but it’s the truth.

For a person who’s always ready for “NEXT, one-two-three, GO,” . . . I was stricken with a paralysis. My country was in great distress over a situation that caused everyone to lose. The visuals still play clearly in my mind and are more painful than I can express.

I was one of those people who wanted Terri Schiavo to live. I was one of those people who could not find any joy in Michael’s Schiavo’s relentless desire to fulfill his wife’s “suddenly remembered” request seven years later.

And lastly, I was one of those people you told to sit down and shut up. So I did.

I needed just a little more time to mourn; it wasn’t that easy for me.

With the passing of the Pope two days later, I could not move away so quickly from thoughts of Terri Schiavo’s passing. I knew the Pope would be okay, but I wasn’t sure about the rest of us.

I’ve cried in my quiet moments - not only for Terri - but for my beloved country, America.

My own quietness has brought about much anguish for me because I am not a quiet person. It is frightening . . . it is terrifying, for I realize the line has been drawn. The “crack” was so loud when Terri Schiavo died, I believe the Pope hung his head even lower and gave up his own will to fight any longer. He had been so deeply passionate about her life that we may have cast a blow to his.

What a tragedy for all of us. What a sad commentary on mankind.

The “crack” became an earthquake forming a deep divide as a line drawn in the sand. Americans are standing strong on the side of what has become their truth. We are no longer able to discern what the truth really is because the clouds have become so dark. There is an expert on every issue arguing both sides, so what is the truth anymore?

The steel that crumpled on that fateful day in September of 2001 may be dwarfed in comparison to the crumbling of our nation’s structure – its foundation. It’s a slower fall, but it’s happening nonetheless, and could be just as fatal. Our “spirit of steel” – layer by layer, floor by floor – is crumbling.

It’s not only that Terri Schiavo died . . . it’s the way we sent her to her death. We stood by watching it happen as if on a daily countdown. We recorded and showed on the nightly news parents and children trying to give her water. I guess we feared she might stand up and walk. That very act defined who we are and makes me ashamed. Those are the pictures that haunt my heart.

Even if you believe Terri Schiavo had a right to die; and even if you believe her husband Michael had the right to stand by her decision to “not live like that;” and you believe her parents were pathetically selfish in not giving her the dignity she deserved in death, do we truly believe she would not want her parents at her bedside when she breathed her last breath? Do we believe that Terri would have refused her own mother’s desire to hold her in her arms one last time and say, “I love you, my precious daughter?”

Then we would also have to believe that Terri would tell her family: “You cannot have a funeral with my body – I want it burned to ashes immediately – so go have your own service without me.”

For some strange reason, this was not the Terri who was portrayed to us as the young vibrant woman who went “religiously” with her family to church every weekend, and not the same person who would refuse a funeral service of her own faith?

It’s also mystifying how fervent Michael was to carry out her wish of “not wanting to live like that,” never considering how he made her die. But he seemed to know his wife so well – these were surely her wishes.

Her family could not have her in life, nor could they have her in death. We can argue all day about who was right or wrong, but in the end, we became damaged goods. What we did to each other is unforgivable. What we did to Terri is a sin. And where we go from here is petrifying.

The Pope’s death has been a celebration of life, but America has suffered a death that can never be celebrated. A part of us died with Terri.

Yes, the Pope is in a better place, and so is Terri Schiavo . . . but not America.

We have lost our way.

Debbie Daniel can be contacted at: dddtx@yahoo.com