Two months after the Schiavo case exposed an entire nation to one family’s bitter battle with death, the hospice has returned to its normal rhythms. In the past 60 days, 129 new patients have arrived, 19 memorials have been held and 88 residents have died, each departing the way Schiavo left — on a gurney, face uncovered, showing that at Woodside, death is not hidden.

Unlike this routine day, the staff has a name for the Schiavo period. They call it The Siege. The two-week sideshow of demonstrators, bomb threats, court rulings and political interventions.

Now — liberated of the television cameras and police checkpoints, the pastor with the bullhorn and the life-size Jesus on a cross, Jesse Jackson and Randall Terry, the juggler and the monks — the people of Woodside are back to the everyday business of dying. For all the chaos and emotion the Schiavo case elicited, it did not alter the fundamental nature of Woodside and the 3,200 hospices across the country. For 15 years, they have been the place where anyone, regardless of age, wealth, handicap or history, can find company on the way to death.