The day after the conversation that I had with my mother, we all watched a Sixty Minute interview that had people on, who lost family members because of 911 operators who refused to send ambulances out unless all of their questions were completely answered. The tapes that Sixty Minutes played of the 911 calls not only proved this right, but the 911 operators were wasting critical time, arguing with the callers.

Mom told us all, "If I am in trouble and the circumstances are that dire, do me a favor and don't call 911."

During a commercial, this prompted conservation and Mom mentioned her wishes to all of us again. Dad was a bit upset, but said, "God damn it June, if that's the way you feel, then I will set up the paperwork. I feel the same way too."

The conversation that I had with my mother really wasn't sitting well with me, but there was no other indication a problem was involved. In fact, she was worried that her Mom was going to be passing away soon.

When her dad died in 1964, I was only four years old, but observed enough to know his death had a horrible impact on my mother that caused problems. I was more concerned about how my mother would take Grandma's death, than Grandma passing on. I talked to mom about this.

"No Mike, when she passes, I will do fine. You see, when Granddad died, he died young, and it was just as much the sense of injustice, since I saw him slave his entire life and he passed before he could really enjoy the fruits of his labors."

"With Grandma, she has led a full, fairly peaceful and fruitful life. I do think she will be passing soon, but having lived that full life, I will be comforted when she passes on."

My grandmother had a constant adversarial relationship with my father, but there isn't much that he could have done about it. My Grandma was far more demanding on my father, than my mother was. With Grandma, it was either, periods of respect and understanding or absolute war, bringing in people who had no business interfering with the family.

Dad kind of understood this, and said that there isn't much he could or should do, so he took everything Grandma related in stride, unless he had a point that he needed to make. My Grandma's interference really impacted and wore on my mother. There were times that my Grandma was so ardent, that I refused to visit her. Just couldn't deal with it.

However, for several years, Dad knowing that things were winding down with Grandma, made a real effort to include her with family affairs and trips. Grandma appreciated this very much and even told me once, "I am even beginning to like your Dad a bit."

My observation was that indeed my eighty-three year old Grandma is going downhill. It was not only her behavior, but the obvious physical strain that she was suffering from. Grandma herself had come to the conclusion that her time was limited. Her only lament was, she wouldn't have the long life her Mom had, as she lived to the age of 92.

My grandmother asked about the camera I wanted for photography school, and became upset when she found out that I hadn't purchased it. "Mike, I want you to have that camera before I die. I want to see you enjoy and use the money I have given you before I die."

What happened next, really floored me, she went into her bedroom and signed over more savings bonds, so I could purchase the camera system that I wanted, the medium format, Bronica 2 ¼. This created in me, a slap your head moment of complete befuddlement and frustration.

Had she made those extra savings bonds available when I was planning to attend the Rhode Island School of Photography; I would have had plenty of money to buy not only the basic camera system, but would have enough left over for food which is what my father wanted me to use it for, plus a little extra left over for emergencies or enjoyment. To satisfy her, I promised to purchase the camera system next month.

It was 5:00am, March 1st, 1989 when I was awakened, faintly hearing a crash, my father running down the steps and yelling at the top of his lungs. I immediately woke up and headed down, thinking, Mom and Dad are arguing? That didn't make sense to me as they only argued a couple of times during their marriage and there was no indication that they were having problems.

Dad was on the phone in the dining room, still yelling. It was obvious that he was arguing with 911. My mother was face down on the floor, between the couch and the coffee table. I immediately went to her and turned her over. She had a black eye, and I demand to know, "Dad, did you hit mom?"

"What?" I repeated my question, to which he gave me a dirty look and went back to yelling at 911. It was now obvious to me that mom was not breathing. Being trained in scouts, I started CPR. With my first breath, she blew back, but immediately stopped.

Dad yelled, "Fuck you! I'm going to my dying wife," as he slammed down the phone and came over to see if he could help. The phone rang and when Dad answered, it was 911 who would be repeatedly calling and hanging up on him.

The CPR instructors explained the process of CPR very matter of fact, but I soon discovered one gray area after the other. I couldn't detect a pulse, but then found one, two and at times three pulses. She was taking a breath when I told her to, but, do I administer CPR or don't I. I decided not to.

All of a sudden, she arched in pain and totally gave up, but just then, the firefighters walked through the door. What happened next was not only irreverent, but a total violation of my mother. They pushed the coffee table out of the way, and simply dragged her to a supine position, ripped her nightgown off and started CPR.

No mouth to mouth here, they used a forced oxygen mask, which immediately extended her stomach into a huge balloon. As they inhalated her, she sounded more like an animal then a person, only to produce gurgling sounds when she aspirated, stopping the effort so they could suction her out.

The paramedics were right behind her, and hooked her up to the cardiac monitoring equipment and prepared to treat her. Immediately the alarm of the monitor started and it was obvious she was flat-lining and in full cardiac arrest. The paramedics switched off with the fire fighters, as they tried again and again to start her heart.

Being lain right beside her were the many numerous syringes of buffering solution, epinephrine, as a variety of other drugs for her heart. Then they hooked mom up to the thumper, which is an automatic CPR device, got her on the gurney and took her to the ambulance. It was decided that I go, as Dad would get my sister off to school and then come up.

The dire situation was not only reinforced by the sounds, the paramedics conversations, they were also hell bent to get her to the hospital and almost flipped the ambulance twice. Once there, Mom was immediately whisked off, and I was taken to give the hospital information. Then put in a small room to suffer through it alone, I waited for the doctor.

Dad was there a short time later, and we talked. I was smoking about every fifteen minutes. Somewhat understanding the situation, I took it as bad news the doctor had not visited us. If mom wasn't able to be resuscitated, he would have already been in to inform us. He only popped by a couple of times, to stick his head in the door and tells us, "Still working on her."

Neither dad, nor myself were happy about this, and we tried to convey our desires that mom was not to be put on a respirator, but all that was said was, "I don't have time for that." They informed me of a place to smoke inside the building, so I went there and hot boxed about three.

On my way back, I got lost and saw them transporting Mom, still bagging her, with the respirator in tow. I remembered what my mother told me, and I had planned to kick over the respirator and physically stop the resuscitation effort. The very second I planted my foot to do just that, every cell in my body reverberated with this loud, low, and resultant tone of, "You are going to deal with this, and you will fail. But you are expected to, none the less!"

In the special ER waiting room, Dad and I were informed of Mom's situation and that she is now in the Critical Care Unit, in critical condition, and on life support. They told Dad to come back later as they have a lot of work to do with mom.

At the house when the paramedics came in, they simply said, "Your Dad shouldn't have been a dick with 911, we were on our way, and really needed the information."

I replied, "There was a Sixty Minutes story last Sunday, where 911 was refusing to send help, until all of the answers were collected. All the 911 operator had to do was to tell Dad that the help that is needed was on the way, instead of acting like a child. " Now home for a couple of minutes, I called 911 again as a non emergency and talked to a supervisor. 

Dad wanted us to have a normal day as possible, and insisted I go to work. Well, I always wondered about Moses' burning bush experience, I now knew it happened. While my mom's condition, and that unknown weighed on me heavily on my walk to work, it was the burning voice that had me in a state of sheer terror.

In fact, a Korean at a gas station took one look and immediately knelt down and prayed. Getting through work with the unknown was difficult. After work, I got home and Dad explained the situation.

"Mom's not breathing, so they put her on a respirator. They said her heart attack was caused by a lack of potassium. God damn it! I told her to take better care of herself! It took a while to figure out, because she was already in cardiac arrest. They told me, they won't remove her from the respirator because her wishes weren't in writing. But they want me to sign off on them inserting a nutritional catheter. Damn it, I know what June wants, so I told them, 'No."

Both I and my sister believed this was the best route. We visited Mom and we all basically told her, we loved her and encouraged her to get better, but also said our goodbyes just in case. Two days later, Dad said the hospital convinced him that inserting the nutritional catheter would really make her get better. I wondered where, was my decision in this and understood why mom said respirator duty would fall on me.

She was only on the respirator for a week, as they weaned Mom off of it. Dad was happy and informed us that she is now in the Cardiac Care Unit. We turned the corner and two hundred feet down the hall you could hear a woman yelling, "Fuck! Fuck! I want to die! Fuck! Fuck! Let me die! Let me die!"

I turned to Dad and said, "That's Mom, isn't that?"

Dad whispered, "Yes," and started to cry. Mom continued the routine, without end, but gave occasional glances towards us. She indicated that she didn't recognize us, and was in a tremendous amount of pain. We went to the nurse's station to get the latest news, but they really didn't have any.

I got the details from Dad who was heartbroken. It took a week for this insipient screaming to calm down. Dad took the wedding book in, but Mom didn't have any recollection. We kept Grandma in the loop, but it quickly became obvious this wasn't a good idea. My Grandma now blamed Dad for the cardiac arrest, and was also upset as Dad had the legal rights and she couldn't take things over.

Dad took an extended leave of absence from work, while insisting I continue to work, and Cindy my sister, go to school. For both my sister and I, functioning in the rest of our lives took a tremendous effort, but we felt that this was for the better. However when it came to Dad, I wondered if his taking off of work was really good for him, but it might be better for his employ.

Working for the Juvenile Services in Baltimore City, his job was extremely stressful, because he really cared and tried to steer his kids' right. His agency had a problem with him, because of the methods that he used, namely telling the truth to his kids how they would end up. While he also believed in helping the kids out before they became a serious problem, he also diverged from the agencies belief, as he then believed they should be put away, to protect society.

The next decision to make was the hospital wanted to insert a permanent feeding tube, citing that without it, Mom would starve and perish from malnutrition despite the nutritional catheter already in her. Again in keeping with my Mom's wishes, and now demands, we decided not to authorize the feeding tube.

Grandma went ballistic saying, "I pretty much figured Lou, that son of a bitch did something to cause this, but now I know he is trying to kill her! I know he is going to hell for what he did to her, but I am going to make sure that son of a bitch finds nothing but hell on this earth!"

She not only meant it, she did a great job of causing it! Soon we were besieged with family members trying to implore us to have the feeding tube put in. My father, possibly my sister, and I were now being treated like murderers. Uncle Vic was one of my favorite uncles, who was the easiest to get along with, and he had no problems either way with our decision.

Uncle Vic was the one person to put it best, "I'm pissing people off to stay out of this, but I don't think it would be right to comment. I know you all love June, what she told you and that she wouldn't want this for you. I also know how your Grandma feels."

"Whether or not you put in the feeding tube, you will either be burdened with your mom's loss, or you will have to deal with the work that will come down the road. I can't be mad at anyone, for any reason or decision."

Nothing about the accusations Grandma made, couldn't be further from the truth. My mother became ill 3:00 in the morning. Dad realized that something was really wrong and wanted to take her to the hospital. A little later Mom was worse and he said, he is calling the ambulance. Mom told Dad that she would not only refuse, but would make an ass out of him.

She assured Dad that she would be alright and for him to go back to bed. What amazed me with Dad handling things was for no reason, he was going through the exact same grief I had with Jean's death. He was expressing the guilt of not doing enough, and saying, he should have cared more.

Other people didn't handle things right, either. Grandma got all of the sympathy, while Dad was told that he's right, he should have been a much better person and taken better care of Mom. But I knew, he truly loved Mom and did take care of her. Of course, knowing if time with the other is going to be limited in this fashion, one would definitely do a better job of things. Still with Dad, I was like Spock, impressed at the illogic of it all, yet I understood just how one's heart and spirit truly feels.

I was heralded on my handling of things, as well, maintaining the perfect outlook, and not pining, grieving or being angry myself. Nothing could be further from the truth, and as with Jean's death, I went through the same things myself. I think why this didn't show was that I understood this was normal and didn't burden myself with trying to figure things out.

I was able to function with the feelings, because I knew I had a lot to do in order to help other people. I was also able to emotionally hang on enough to allow me to suffer with things when it was convenient for me to do so. 

One thing was for sure. Any thoughts of spending time, or going out with women were out of the question. With the words going through my mind, You are expected to deal with this and you will fail, but you are expected to, none the less; I had the feeling that to attempt be with a woman would be more grating then comforting.

I seriously doubted that any woman would want to date me, because I knew that I would very often leave her high and dry, despite any plans, because I was sure problems would be constantly changing the plans. With what I experienced about dating, I really didn't believe too many women would either have very much understanding, or acceptance of me having to be dedicated to the cause of someone like Mom. I also didn't want love to enter in, and then have to choose between my Mom, and another woman.

One thing was sure in my mind, with the eventuality Mom would be coming home; I knew that everything that I am, I have learned, as well my devotion to both the family, would be tested.