Mail that brings tears after Marine's death.

Susan Lampert Smith, whose Wisconsin State Journal column first told the public about Pro-Life Wisconsin's vicious and heartless attack on the family and caregivers of a Marine who died after being critically wounded in Iraq, writes about the response to that column:

It isn't too often that my mail makes me cry.

But that was how it went this week as friends and family of the late Marine Staff Sgt. Chad Simon called and wrote to thank me for my column Saturday about Pro-Life Wisconsin's horrifying attack on the hospice center that cared for him.

(In case you missed it, the Pro-Lifers put out a press release claiming that Simon was "murdered by those in charge of his medical care" because his feeding tube was removed when it was clear that he was not going to recover from a severe brain injury.)

I also heard from hospice workers, who wrote and talked about being moved by the devotion of his family during the long eight months between when the roadside bomb exploded in Iraq in November and his death on Aug. 4.

"The love we saw from his family touched us all," one worker wrote. "We will long remember and never forget him. He is burned in our hearts forever."

A high school friend of Chad Simon's wrote: "Chad made his wishes known before he left, and knowing Chad, he never would have wanted to exist in the condition he was in. . . . he trusted that Regina (his wife) would have the strength and love for him to carry out his wishes if the day ever came, and she did."

I heard from Regina Simon, too, and the pain in her voice is indescribable.

Despite what Pro-Life Wisconsin would have you believe, no one makes end-of-life decisions lightly. The people charged with legal power- of-attorney are saying goodbye to the loves of their lives, to their parents, to their best friends. Many families, like the Simons, are deeply religious and make these choices only after much prayer.

As hard as it is, most of want someone who loves us and knows us making those choices.

Pro-Life did back off on its most inflammatory charge, and I do have to give them credit for raising an issue that troubles many people. Peggy Hamill of Pro-Life says her group's position is that "food and water are basic human rights," and that advanced directives shouldn't be used to cause death by removing them.

I disagree. The whole purpose of advanced directives is to give people some sense of control over their own destinies. One of the most moving letters on Chad Simon came from a Madison woman named Ellen Esser.

Like all of us, she's going to die.

Unlike most of us, she's put some thought into it since being diagnosed with incurable ovarian cancer in 2001. She has both a living will and a health-care power of attorney, a legal document PLW called "a suicide note."

"What a slap in the face to the Simon family and all families . . . who have carefully chosen what we wish and what we don't wish in case of severe illness and injury," Esser wrote. "How dare they call what I have a suicide note?"

I called Esser, who is still doing well despite her diagnosis, and we talked about both our desires to have some control over our last hours.

Here's what she had to say:

"I hope they will learn that pro-life means letting go, as well and that pro-life should be respectful. I hope that this group is no where near hospice when I die."

A piece I posted here earlier has more details and a link to her original column.