Chapter XXII – Anthony’s Last Week on Earth

This part of the story has dates so you will know what happened on what day otherwise the days will run together. I think the timeline will help when reading this part of the story.

On Saturday, March 10, 2007 Eddie, Kevin, Brett and I were driving to Billings Montana because Eddie had a job interview there.  On the way, I called Anthony at 11:00 a.m. our time which was 12:00 p.m. his time in Florida and I woke him up.  I called him because we were at the North Dakota Bad Lands so I said to him, "Guess where we are?" and he said, "Where?"  I said, "Looking at more rocks and dirt."  He started laughing and said, "Really?"  I said, "Yep, we are in the North Dakota Bad Lands."  He said, "Oh cool." I was really shocked to hear him say that because he hated looking at that type of thing when we went out west before. 

I asked him if I woke him up and he said, "Yes."  I said, "Good, that is pay back for all those times you woke me up at 3:00 in the morning."  He started laughing.

During our conversation Anthony told me Susan (now his girlfriend) had stabbed him earlier that morning around 3:00 a.m.  I asked him if he needed to go to the doctor and he told me it wasn't that bad.  I told him if it wasn't that bad then he needed to put peroxide or alcohol on it to keep it from getting infected and he said he would. 

He proceeded to tell me Susan came in late that night and he had had enough of her coming home late so he told her to pack her things and leave.  She refused to leave so they got into a fight.  She pulled a kitchen knife on him and he pinned her arm up against the wall so she couldn't stab him.  She bit him, got the knife loose and stabbed him in the left shoulder.  For Anthony’s sake I did my best to be nice to her on My Space but this gave me reason to like her even less. 

He also told me his heart hurt.  I asked him how it hurt.  He said, "I don't know ma it just hurts."  I said, "Does it hurt like a broken heart or a heart attack?" I asked him that because I thought maybe he was heartbroken.  He again said, "I don't know it just hurts."

We didn't say much after that so I told him I would let him go since I woke him up. He said he wouldn't go back to sleep because he was awake now.  I told him my battery was running low so I’d call him when we got to Billings and we’d talk when I could plug up my phone.  I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me too and we hung up. It was an understood rule in our house when you went to bed at night or hung up the phone you said, “I love you” even if you were upset with one another.

Little did I know, but that would be the last conversation I’d ever have with my son. If I would’ve known that I would have made him stay on the phone a lot longer.  I would’ve told him all the things I was proud of he had done in his life and how much I loved him and I didn’t want him to leave me but I knew he had to.  This just goes to show, you never know when it will be your time to leave this Earth. 

We got to our hotel in Billings around 5:00 p.m. that evening.  The boys went swimming and Eddie went for his interview and I stayed in the room.  I could see the boys from our window so I kept an eye on them from there.  I watched T.V. until Eddie got back and we talked while he changed out of his interview clothes into something more comfortable. 

He asked me where the boys were so I pointed out the window to the pool and explained to him I had been keeping an eye on them from our room.  The boys were eleven and thirteen now and they were plenty old enough to swim on their own.  Eddie lay down on the bed and started watching T.V. the rest gets rather foggy from there. 

I believe it was around 7:00 p.m. that evening when I got a phone call from Susan.  She was crying and she said, "Lori."  I said, "Yes."  She said, "This is Susan, Anthony's girlfriend. Something bad has happened to Anthony and the nurse needs some information from you."  I was still very calm at that time and I said, "Susan, hand the phone to the nurse and I will give her the information."  Susan said, "The nurse needs some information about Anthony."  I again said, "Susan, hand the phone to the nurse and I will give her the information." Susan said, "The nurse needs some information about Anthony."  At this point I was getting really scared and I said, "Susan, is Anthony alive or dead?!" She said, "This phone isn't working so the nurse is going to call you back on a land line and she hung up." Eddie was looking at me waiting for me to tell him what happened but I couldn't because I knew nothing. 

The phone rang and the nurse said, "Is this Lori?"  I said, "Yes." She said, "I need some information about Anthony."  I said, "Okay."  She started asking me if he’d ever been there before, if he had insurance, when he was born, what his address was, etc.  I couldn't answer the address part because he was living from friend to friend at the time so I had no idea where he was staying.  I told her I’d have to call my mother to see if she had insurance on him because I knew at one time she did but I wasn’t sure if she still did or not.  I asked how he was and she told me all the doctors and nurses were in the room with my son and they were doing everything they could to save his life. I asked her what happened and she said, “I will have Susan call you back and tell you.” 

Susan called me back and said, “Anthony swallowed three 8 balls of cocaine and he isn’t doing well at all. He was riding in a car with a boy named Rodney. Rodney got pulled over and Anthony had cocaine on him, he freaked out because he didn't want to go back to jail so he swallowed it. He was taken to Jason's house where they tried to save him and they couldn't.  They called the ambulance and it took him to the hospital.” I said “Do I need to fly to Florida?” and she said, “I would if I were you.” 

I hung up from talking to her and made the hardest phone call I have ever had to make, I called my mother.  When she answered the phone I asked her if she had insurance on Anthony and she said, "No, I dropped him a couple of years ago. Why?" I explained to her what I knew so far and she refused to believe what I was telling her.  I finally made her understand how serious this was. 

I called the nurse back and told her he had no insurance.  She asked me if they had permission to try to save my son's life and I told her, “Yes.”  She said, "Good because we would’ve anyway at his age." I asked her if she thought I needed to fly to Florida and explained to her where we were. She said, "I would if I were you.  We are doing everything possible to keep him alive at this point."  The reason I asked her was because kids tend to exaggerate a lot and I didn't want to fly to Florida if Anthony was going to be out of the hospital by the time I got there.

She also told me my son had arrived at the hospital as a John Doe.  I didn’t understand that because Susan, Jason, and Carla (Jason’s girlfriend) were with him when he arrived. 

Within 30 minutes after I called mother, Aunt Georgia called me and told me mother had called her and told her what was going on. Aunt Georgia and Jim used to live in Florida and had moved to Fairfield Bay, AR a couple of months before. Aunt Georgia said she and Jim were in Florida visiting some friends and they would be at the hospital in about twenty minutes.  She said, “At least this way he will have some of his family there,” I thanked her. I was so grateful they were there to be with him.  The rest of our family was way off, mother and daddy in White House, TN and Eddie, the boys, and I in Billings, Montana.  At least he’d have someone with him during this time.

I called Carrie and told her what was going on. Then I had to do something I didn’t want to do but knew I had to just in case Anthony didn’t make it through this.  I asked her where Anthony wanted to be buried. I explained to her Anthony would never tell me where he wanted to be buried he just told me Carrie, Wyatt and Shocoby would know.  At the time, she had no idea where that might be.  She later called me back and told me he wanted to be buried by Chris (their friend that died two years earlier).

During our conversation, Carrie told me she was on her way to the hospital and she was bringing Anthony R. (a friend of Carrie and Anthony) with her so she’d have some company for the six hour drive. I told her that was a very long drive and she didn’t have to come to Florida but she insisted.  I am so glad she did because that would be the last time either of them would see him alive.

As soon as Aunt Georgia and Jim arrived at the hospital, Aunt Georgia called me and updated me on Anthony's condition.  She said it didn’t look good because he was on a breathing machine (life support).  She also told me he’d coded in the hospital and on the scene.  This was the first I’d heard of either of these deaths or the breathing machine and I then realized just how serious this was. If I would’ve paid attention to what the nurse told me earlier when she said, "All the doctors and nurses are in your son's room doing everything they can to save him" I would’ve realized he had coded at that time.

Aunt Georgia told me she held his hand and told him she was there. He squeezed her hand so hard she thought he was going to break it.  The nurses had to pry her hand out of his.  She told me she knew he knew she was there and I thanked her for being there because he had no family anywhere near there.  She said the nurses told her he was involuntarily squeezing her hand and he didn’t know she was there.  I believe he did, he was scared to death and that is why he was gripping so tight. 

Aunt Georgia said the doctor told her they pumped Anthony’s stomach looking for baggies of cocaine because that was what the kids told him to look for but he didn’t retrieve anything. 

Shortly after that, Susan called me back telling me the police had questioned her. She said she lied to them and told them he tried to commit suicide by swallowing three 8-balls of cocaine.  The reason she lied to them was because she didn’t want them to put Anthony in jail when he got out of the hospital. 

I didn’t say anything to her but this would’ve caused them to keep a very close eye on him, if not put him in the psych ward, once he got better. I told her my aunt was there looking for her and after about an hour they finally caught up with each other.

After we got off the phone I started thinking about the conversation I had with Anthony that morning and how he told me his heart hurt. When he told me his heart hurt I was trying to get him to tell me if it hurt because of Susan or if it hurt like a heart attack hurt. If you remember, he never could tell me. I then began to wonder if Susan was telling the truth about Anthony trying to commit suicide. I had hoped that part of her story really was a lie.

About an hour later, Aunt Georgia called me and told me the story Susan told her but the stories didn’t match.  That was a little concerning to me.  What was really going on? Aunt Georgia also told me there were a lot of kids coming in droves to see Anthony and they had to get security to run them off because Anthony needed his rest.  They didn’t want anything to upset him so he’d stay alive until I got there.  She said, “However, there is this one boy that refuses to leave.  He keeps hanging around in the hallway and is watching every move Jim and I make so Jim finally called security to remove him.”

I got off the phone and was pacing back and forth in the hotel room and repeating out loud the two stories I’d been told.  Eddie said, "I may be wrong but it sounds to me like Anthony was poisoned. Everything happened so fast and I don't think a cocaine overdose would do that." I called the hospital and asked the nurse if they could test him for poisoning and she told me once they got him to ICU she’d tell them I’d requested this test.

Aunt Georgia called me back and asked me if I knew about the cut on Anthony's left shoulder and the scratches on his leg and I told her how the cut got there but I didn't know about the scratches. She said, “The doctor asked Susan how those cuts got on Anthony and Susan said she didn’t know.”  I got very angry at this time and was yelling, "Yes she does know how that cut got on him!!!! She stabbed him!!!!” Aunt Georgia said, “What?!!!  Well that little, she sat up there and flat out lied to the doctor when he asked her where he got that cut and those scratches!!!!” She then said it wasn’t very bad but it was noticeable.

At that moment, I felt so helpless because I was in Montana and he was in Florida and it was going to be a day or so before I could get to him.  All I could do was pray he lived until I got to him.

Sunday, March 11, 2007, I called ICU this morning and asked if they’d done the poison test and Becky, the nurse, told me I had to be there to sign some papers before they could do the test. I was getting frustrated at this time because I really wanted to know the results of that test.

After hanging up the phone with Becky, I called Angie and asked her to call Kim, Uncle T.L. (one of my father’s younger brothers), Tyler, and several other people to let them know about Anthony.  I gave Angie the phone numbers, she repeated them out loud to Robert, and Robert wrote them down.  I was very thankful to them for doing that for me because I just didn’t have the time.

That morning Eddie called my boss which was his old boss and told her what was going on and I didn’t know how long I would be gone.  She told Eddie to tell me she was sorry. 

I booked a flight that afternoon for 2:00 p.m.  Eddie dropped me off at the airport at 11:00 a.m. because he and the boys had to be on their way home or it would be very late before they got back.

I called Becky before boarding the plane so I could get an update on Anthony. She told me they were doing everything they could to keep my son alive until I got there.  She said his kidneys had failed, he had brain damage, he wasn’t responding to anything, and his liver was failing.  I told her I had a two hour layover in Minneapolis, MN and I’d call her as soon as I landed to get another update. All I could think about was please let me son stay alive until I get there.  Lord, please keep him alive so I can see him one last time and tell him bye.

Immediately after landing in Minneapolis I called Becky, she said there was no change. Two hours later, before boarding my final flight, I called her again, there was still no change. To me this was a good thing because that meant there was a chance I’d make it to my son before he passed away.

Monday, March 12, 2007 I arrived in Florida at midnight, as soon as I landed I called Becky again, there was still no change. Jim and Bob (a friend of mother, daddy, Jim and Aunt Georgia) picked me up at the airport. 

After about an hour of riding, I noticed Bob was driving in a subdivision and not in town towards the hospital. I started to panic because I was afraid I wasn't going to the hospital until morning and Anthony would die overnight.  I told Jim, “I thought we were going to the hospital” and he said, "We stopped here at Bob’s house so I can pick up my car and then we are going to the hospital." I was relieved to know we were going to the hospital that night but at the same time, I knew my time to get to my son was running out.

Around 1:00 a.m., after what seemed like an eternity, I made it to the hospital. I was so thankful Anthony hadn’t taken a turn for the worse or died while I was in transit.  

When Jim and I walked in the waiting room, Aunt Georgia, Mother, Carrie and Anthony were sleeping.  By the time I arrived I was exhausted but one by one everyone got up and hugged my neck. Mother called the nurse’s station and told them I was there so they let me go back to see my son. 

When I walked in the room I was already prepared for what I saw.  Anthony was hooked up to a life support machine which was breathing for him and he was just lying there motionless.  He never regained consciousness the entire time he was in the hospital.  I told him, "Momma's here son, momma's here." I felt a sigh of relief because I now knew I’d be able to tell him goodbye.  I pulled a chair up next to his bed, laid my head down on the rail of the bed and just sat there.  An hour later the nurse came in and told me I needed to leave so Anthony could get some rest. 

When I left Anthony’s room, I went to the nurse’s station and asked Becky if I could sign the papers for the poison testing.  She told me I had to talk to a doctor and he’d have to order it before they’d do the test.  This was news to me because when I asked about the test originally, I was told they’d order it as soon as Anthony got to ICU and now Becky was telling me I had to talk to a doctor and have him order the test. This was becoming very frustrating and in the long run it was a major setback. Frustrated and disappointed I went back to the waiting room where everyone was sleeping and lay down.  None of us slept very well that night, to say the least.

Carrie and I were the only two awake around 7:00 a.m. so I asked her if she wanted to go get some breakfast and she said, "Yes". The two of us left and since I didn’t have a car she drove us to McDonald's.  Since we didn’t tell the others where we were going we brought our breakfast back to the waiting room to eat. By the time we got back everyone was waking up. 

Sometime that morning Aunt Georgia gave me Anthony's belongings that the nurse had given her when Anthony was in the ER.  She handed me his class ring, driver’s license, a bracelet and a necklace. I immediately put his class ring on my finger and his license in my purse.  The ring was very loose and hard to keep on my finger but I managed somehow. I kept it on the entire time he was in the hospital because this was the only thing that kept me going.  I know it sounds silly but it is true.  Mother paid for the ring but she told me I could keep it as long as I needed if it made me feel better.

Shortly after that, mother told me Angie and Robert had a bracelet custom made for Anthony and had given it to him as a Christmas present.  She said he never took the bracelet off because it was very unique and meant a lot to him, now the bracelet was missing. She would recognize the bracelet if she saw it but I’d never seen it before so I had no idea what it looked like. 

A little while later, the nurses allowed Carrie and Anthony to go see my Anthony.  They spent some time in there together, then Anthony left Carrie alone with my son to tell him bye. I allowed them some time alone, and then I joined them.  I asked her if she wanted to kiss him goodbye and she said, “Yes”.  She leaned over the bed to kiss him but she was so short that she couldn’t reach him.  So she pulled up a chair, stood in the chair and kissed him that way, we both laughed.  Carrie said that was one of the happiest moments of her life and that really touched my heart. 

After we left Anthony's room, Carrie, Anthony, and I were standing in the ICU doorway talking. I asked Anthony how many times he’d been in rehab, he told me six. Anthony was only twenty years old at that time. I hoped seeing my Anthony in the hospital with tubes everywhere and on life support would make him wake up and realize he didn’t want to be in that position.  I asked him, “Do you want to end up like my Anthony?” He said me, “No ma’am.”  I then said, “Take a real good look at what this is doing to me. Do you want to put your mother through this?” He said, “No ma’am.” I didn’t do that to be mean to him. I wanted him to realize the facts in this situation and that if he didn’t stop drinking this was going to be him and his mother. Only time will tell if this scared him bad enough to quit drinking or not.

While we were standing there I gave Carrie Anthony’s necklace and bracelet Aunt Georgia had given me earlier. I wanted her to have something to remember him by but when I handed them to her she asked me where his cross necklace and watch he always wore were. I explained to her that was the jewelry Aunt Georgia had given me because that was what they’d given her in the ER. I told her I had no idea what jewelry he wore and she described the cross necklace to me and told me he never took it off. 

Carrie also asked me whose name Susan's car was in (Anthony bought her a car) and I told her I had no idea. I’m glad Carrie was there because she thought of things I never would’ve thought of and she knew things about Anthony that I didn’t.

Anthony’s wallet was also missing.  Susan originally told mother over the phone they didn’t know where Anthony's wallet was but later Saturday night she brought his license to the hospital and gave them to Aunt Georgia.  The hospital wanted his license to see whether or not he was a donor and he was. If his organs were salvageable I wanted to fulfill his wish of donating them to someone that needed them.

By this time all of us are beginning to think Susan stole all of Anthony’s jewelry, phone and wallet.  Anthony never went anywhere without his wallet and his driver’s license was in his wallet.  Isn’t it funny how Susan came back to the hospital several hours after he was admitted and gave Aunt Georgia his license? Therefore she had to have his wallet in order to get his license.

Around 11:00 a.m. that morning, Carrie and Anthony headed back to Mississippi because Carrie had to go to work the next day but Carrie kept in touch with me the whole time Anthony was in the hospital.

Ever since Sunday morning, mother had been trying to get Susan to give her Anthony's phone because the phone was in my father’s name. Susan would tell mother she’d bring it the next time she came to the hospital then she’d forget to bring it.

I told mother I’d get her phone back. So that morning I called Susan and asked her to bring Anthony's phone with her when she came to the hospital.  I told her the reason I needed it was because it had the phone numbers of his friend’s that lived in Mississippi and I needed to contact them in order to let them know what was going on. I knew the phone numbers but I needed the phone so I told her a lie. Why not right?  She had been lying to me all this time. 

Carrie and Anthony were gone before Susan got to the hospital.  I didn’t want them there at the same time because there would’ve been a fight. Carrie was ready to kill Susan over taking all of Anthony’s belongings and Susan didn’t like Carrie because she was the ex-girlfriend. Susan brought me the phone. I thanked her and put the phone on top of mother's purse.  Every time the phone rang Susan would answer it because she knew it was probably someone wanting drugs from Anthony and she didn’t want my mother to answer the phone. 

Susan didn’t stay very long, right after she left I took the phone and put it in my pocket.  Almost immediately after leaving, Susan came back to the waiting area. Mother and I were standing in the hallway when she arrived. She told us she’d lost her son’s bottle and was going to look for it. Mother and I watched her search the entire waiting area looking for her son’s bottle which I noticed was in the side pocket of the diaper bag she was carrying.  I told mother I believed she’d come back to get Anthony’s phone and mother agreed with me.  I think Susan realized I knew who all of Anthony’s contacts were on the phone and she wanted to erase them. Too late!!!

After she left, mother and I immediately went to the police station with the phone.  They sent us to an undercover police officer who took us to a private room in the police station.  His partner was sitting at the far end of the table when we walked in the room and they were both dressed up like druggies.  I told mother the officer that came and got us looked like he was really someone who bought drugs on the street. Mother thought he looked very clean cut.  Hello!!! He had long hair pulled back in a ponytail and his tongue, nose, and ears were pierced. Does that sound clean cut to you????? 

Anyway, I handed him Anthony's phone and told him who Anthony’s supplier, contacts, friends and family were.  I told him who was who on the phone in hopes this would help lead to some arrests and I asked him not to call our family members. 

While we were there I asked the officer if there was anything else I could do to help him arrest some of these people, then I answered my own question.  I told him I’d get him their names, addresses and phone numbers. He asked me how I’d do that and I said, "We are having a real problem with these kids hanging out at the hospital, we are running them off repeatedly.  I will tell Susan to have them all come see him tonight. When they walk in I’ll have them sign a sheet like you do in a funeral home. I’ll tell them the reason for this is because I want to know who came to see him in the hospital, and who came to see him at the funeral home in Mississippi.” 

Once we got out of the police station, I called Susan to see if she’d get everyone together to come to the hospital that night, she told me she would. She told me she was on her way to the hospital at that time so I quickly had to come up with a reason why we weren’t there. I told her mother and I had gone out to eat so we weren’t there, she believed me and didn’t go.

While mother and I were at the police station the doctor came by, since we weren’t there he gave Aunt Georgia the update. Again I missed the doctor so I was still unable to order the poison test, by this time I was beginning to get really annoyed.  My son had been in the hospital since Saturday night, here it was Monday afternoon, and I still was unable to get the poison test ordered I asked the nurse to order Saturday night.

Once Mother and I got back to the hospital I went to the nurse’s station and told Sylvia (the head nurse) to come get me the next time a doctor came by to see Anthony because I was his mother and I still hadn’t seen a doctor.  I told her I didn’t want the doctor talking to anyone but me and she said she would come get me. She knew once I told her that she had to do what I said. I was Anthony’s biological mother and as of that moment she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone anything else unless she had my permission to do so.

In the beginning, the doctors were talking to anyone present that was family to give them an update and I appreciated that but I knew I had to speak with a doctor in order to get that poison test, it was time to put my foot down and I did. 

David and Donna, daddy’s family that lives in Texas, just happened to be in Florida on vacation at that time. They came by to see Anthony as soon as they got the message.  They spent two days visiting with us off and on and telling stories of the olden days which I loved to hear. The two of them being there and telling stories helped get our minds off of what was really going on.

After arriving at the hospital Monday morning and seeing how bad off Anthony really was I had made up my mind if he wasn’t better by Tuesday I was going to have to take him off of life support (pull the plug). If there would’ve been any chance he would’ve survived this, I would’ve allowed him to continue on life support but if not, I knew I was going to have to make the hardest decision of my life and I was prepared to do so.

As the day progressed, Anthony continued getting worse.  I know knew Tomorrow was the day I was going to have to take him off of life support because he wasn’t going to make it.

I started making funeral arrangements.  I called Carrie (Chris’s step-mother) and explained to her what was going on and asked her if it’d be okay for Anthony to be buried by Chris.  She said she’d have to check with Chris’s father and see because it was a private cemetery where his family was buried.  Shortly after that she called me back and said he checked with his family and that would be fine. 

From there Carrie took matters into her own hands and was a huge help to me.  She called the church where Chris was buried and reserved a plot for Anthony.  Not only that but she and Jimbo paid for the plot which was $100.00 and all I had to pay was $30.00 for the hole to be dug.  I was speechless when she told me this because that was the nicest gift anyone had ever given me and it was extremely sweet of them. She explained to me the reason for them doing that was because she knew this was unexpected and they wanted to do something to help us because they loved Anthony as if he was their own and this was their contribution. 

Carrie then called Ott and Lee, the funeral home in Mississippi, in order to start making the arrangements for Anthony’s funeral. Aunt Georgia did some research and found out if the funeral home in Florida would contact the funeral home in Mississippi directly it would save me a lot of money. I told mother this so she wouldn’t call either funeral home because this was going to get really expensive really fast.

Carrie also called Cathy (Chris’s mother) and told her what was going on, Cathy immediately called me.  Cathy was a nurse so she was telling me things to do to see if Anthony responded to any of them. She wanted me to make sure I was doing the right thing and if he responded at all I needed to keep him alive.  I’d do each thing she told me but none of them worked, Anthony was just not in there.

Carrie (Chris’s step-mother) made several phone calls to me to let me know what was going on as far as the funeral arrangements went. We had to get this taken care of today because Anthony wouldn’t be here tomorrow. 

One of the times right after I got off the phone with Carrie, mother told me I needed to calm down because I was too hyper.  I asked her what she meant by that because I wasn’t hyper at all.  She said, “You are on the phone too much and you are wound up.”  I told her I was making funeral arrangements for my son and there was nothing to get hyper about.  She again told me, “You just need to settle down.”  I just shook my head and walked out of the ICU waiting room.

Mother had gotten many, many phone calls from family and friends while we were there and the only people I spoke with were Eddie, Carrie, Cathy, and Carrie and I was not on the phone very long at all. All of our family members were calling mother to see how Anthony was doing and how she was holding up so she was the one on the phone all the time. I have no idea where she got the idea I was hyper but I guess that does not really matter anymore.

I called Eddie and told him what was going on. I told him I’d made it a point to be very calm during this time because I knew I had to keep a level head in order to make the funeral arrangements and do the things I had to do.  I know when I am hyper and I was in slow motion during this time, trust me.

Mark, Julie and Elaine (their daughter) came to the hospital that afternoon and I let them go see Anthony.  I allowed them to stay in his room as long as they wanted to because Anthony had stayed with them for several months in the past and I thought I owed them that much. Anthony considered these people his parents so I felt I owed them a lot of time with him.  Mother was also thankful they let Anthony live with them, she too believed they should be allowed to spend a lot of time with him.  I told them I was trying to get all the kids to come to the hospital that night so I could thank them for coming to see Anthony. Julie said she’d also make sure everyone knew to come to the hospital.  I was doing everything in my power to make sure I got as many addresses and phone numbers as I could to give the officer.

Julie also told me all the kids were supposed to show up that night outside Anthony’s hospital room with lit candles to show him how much they loved him.  To the best of my knowledge they never showed up.

While Mark, Julie, and Elaine were there Susan came back.  She kept asking me to let her go see Anthony but I refused to for several reasons; I didn’t trust her back there with him because she’d stabbed him and denied it, she lied to the cops and said he tried to commit suicide, and I was also afraid she’d act a fool. 

Susan begged me to let her go see Anthony and said if she could just see him she could tell him something that would make him open his eyes, yeah right.  Anyway, I finally gave in and I warned her about what she was going to see. I told her if she acted up I was going to make her leave (she is definitely a drama queen when it comes to attention). 

Once she got to Anthony’s room she was very well behaved. She did lean over and whisper something to Anthony but he didn’t open his eyes, then she hugged my neck and thanked me for letting her say goodbye.

That night around 6:00 p.m., what seemed like a hundred kids, showed up to see Anthony, I’ve never seen so many kids in my life.  I’d spoken to them on the phone but I’d never met any of them. I asked each of them to sign the paper with their name, address, phone number, etc. Once they’d signed the paper they’d tell others as they came in to sign it as well.  Thank goodness no one suspected what I was doing, I got all the information I needed for the police. 

The hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life was acting like I liked these kids and hugging their necks knowing there was a possibility they’d poisoned my son. I knew for a fact they were the reason he was laying up there in that bed.

Every time I thought the kids were all there, more would show up, they just kept coming and kept coming.  Different groups of kids at different times would tell me not to take Anthony off of life support because they’d known several people in the past that were on a respirator and they survived even with the doctors saying there was no way possible.  I got so tired of hearing this especially when it was my son in that bed. It was my decision and it was a very hard decision to make.

I finally got all those kids (about thirty) in a circle around me and I told them the person in that bed wasn’t Anthony.  I explained to them all of his organs were failing, he couldn’t respond to anything, and if he did live he’d be a vegetable the rest of his life. Again, someone told me not to take him off of the respirator.  At that time I finally heard all I wanted to hear.  I very calmly told them, "Look, this is my son and it is my decision.  If you don’t respect my decision then you need to leave."  It got very quiet, they all stayed and nothing else was mentioned about removing the respirator. 

That night, just before the kids showed up at the hospital, there was a major drug bust in Fruitland Park where Jason lived but they didn’t get Jason. The reason I know they didn’t arrest him was because he was at the hospital with me while the others were being arrested.  It was so hard to hug him knowing he was my son’s supplier and it was more than likely his cocaine Anthony swallowed.

I managed to control myself very well that night. I gave no one any reason to suspect anything. I asked the kids if the next day they’d bring me pictures of Anthony along with any of his belongings they could find because I wanted something to remember him by.  They all told me they’d bring what they could find, I thanked them. I knew this would be the only way I’d ever get any of his belongings back.

The kids asked me if I was having a viewing or funeral in Florida and I told them the viewing and funeral were going to be in Mississippi.  Then they started discussing driving to Mississippi to the funeral and piling up ten to a car if they had to (I was amazed they were going to drive that far all piled up in a car).  They asked me why I didn’t have two funerals. I told them I’d have a viewing in Florida so they could tell him bye and they were all very excited about that. Mother told me she’d have no part of that. I explained to her no matter what we thought of these kids they were his friends and we should allow them to tell him bye. Again she refused to even consider doing that. She explained to me she didn’t want to go through two viewings and a funeral because that would be too hard on her, I had to respect that. Needless to say we only had one viewing and one funeral which were in Mississippi.

I never really knew what happened until I had all the kids up there with me and they were telling me Anthony was in a truck with this guy named Rodney when he died and Rodney killed him.  A lot of the kids told me Rodney wanted to come to the hospital to see me but they (the kids) wouldn’t allow it.  I told them if Rodney killed my son I would prefer he not come up there.  They said they were going to get him and make him pay for what he did to Anthony. I told them I didn’t care what they did to him because that was between them and I was staying out of it.  I didn’t discourage them however because at this time I still didn’t know what really happened to Anthony and if they were all blaming Rodney then he must’ve had something to do with it. I believed at that time I needed to let the streets take care of him.

That night I met Carla, Jason's girlfriend, she was telling me what happened to Anthony at her house the night he died.  She said Rodney brought Anthony to their house that night. Anthony was on the back porch unconscious and she called an ambulance because he started seizing.  She said he threw up on her back porch, that he died before the ambulance got there and they used the paddles to revive him. 

She said his “Crabtree Family Cookbook” was at her house along with a couple of other things he owned.  I asked her if she’d bring them to the hospital the next day and she said she would, however she didn’t. Carla also told me every time Anthony heard “My Immortal”, the song played at Chris’s funeral, he would cry, it was then I made the decision to play that song at Anthony’s funeral as well.

Carla told me Anthony had a pit bull puppy and asked me what I wanted to do with her. I told her whoever had his puppy now could keep her because I wasn’t allowed to have her where I lived, plus I had a tiny toy poodle and Anthony made his puppy mean. She also told me Anthony had $11,000.00 in the bank and he’d taken $24,000.00 out a couple of days earlier.  I then wondered if he’d been mugged by his friends for the money and things had gone wrong.  Anthony told me he had a lot of money in the bank but I didn’t believe him, I guess he was telling me the truth.

After most of the kids had left there were two that were still hanging around, I let them go see Anthony.  One of these kids was Bobby, who was a good friend of Anthony’s, and the other was Darren, who had let Anthony live with him for a while. 

Bobby went in first and when he came out I let Darren go in. I stood outside the door the entire time he was talking to Anthony.  While I was standing there, the ICU doors opened and my mother and Will (he was her preacher while she lived in Florida) walked through the doors.  Up until this point mother had held up rather well. 

As they walked through the door, my mother had her head on Will’s shoulder he was trying to hold her up.  She walked over to Anthony’s room to see him, when she saw Darren in there she went off on me.  She said, “Get him out of the room!” I said, “I allowed him three minutes with Anthony and he only has one left.”  She said, “I don’t care how much time he has left, get him out of there!”  I said, “I told Darren he could have three minutes with Anthony and I am giving him those three minutes. I am taking Anthony off of the respirator tomorrow and I am letting his friend tell him bye!”  She said, “Darren is taking up my time with my grandson and I want him out!” I said, “He is taking up my time with my son and I will let you have the rest of my time with Anthony while he is alive!” Well by now, Darren’s one minute was up so I asked him to leave, Mother walked in the room with her head on Will’s shoulder and I just shook my head as I left ICU.

I was very proud of myself that night because four of Anthony’s friends were arrested at the hospital. At one point in time, a security guard came up to me and told me they had arrested Susan as well.  I asked him if I could see her because I’d been told she had on my son’s necklace.  He walked me down to the parking lot where Susan was standing. She was in handcuffs yelling at the police officer.  The security guard told her he believed she had on a necklace that belonged to Anthony and she told him to fuck himself because that was her necklace and she paid for it.  Susan didn’t see me because I was standing behind her.  Once I started talking to her she turned around, then she saw me. 

The officer held out the necklace and asked me if that was Anthony’s.  I told him I wasn’t sure because I’d never seen the necklace before I just knew it had a cross on it.  Susan told me they had matching necklaces, Anthony’s moved and hers didn’t.  About that time Bobby walked up, I asked him if that was Anthony’s necklace, he said, “No it is Susan’s.” I had no choice but to let her walk off with the necklace.   

After all the commotion was over I asked mother if I could go see Anthony one last time since I was not going to see him anymore and she agreed it would be fine.  Once I got in the room I leaned over his bed and told him, “Son go to the light.  Look for Chris and JP and go with them to the light.”  I hated seeing my son this way and I was definitely tired of fighting all of those kids.  I was being selfish. I just wanted this whole thing over.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 this morning at 1:00 a.m. a lady from the ICU nurse’s station came into the ICU waiting area and said mother had a phone call from a guy named Rodney.  She said he was the guy with Anthony when they got pulled over and swallowed the cocaine. She asked mother if she wanted to speak with him, mother said, “No.”  Aunt Georgia said, "Well I want to speak to him!" then mother said, "I changed my mind, I do want to speak to him.” She left the room and followed the nurse to the nurse’s station. 

Mother came back shortly and said Rodney was coming to the hospital to tell us what really happened to Anthony and he was being escorted by the police because he was afraid for his life. He said Darren had been threatening him because they all accused him of killing Anthony. So we all sat up and waited anxiously for Rodney to arrive.

When Rodney got to the hospital, a female police officer came to the ICU waiting room to make sure we were alone.  Once she realized there was no one else there with us she told another female officer waiting around the corner, it was clear. 

The officer came from behind the corner and following her was this very tall, young, chubby guy with a young lady.  Rodney walked up to mother and started hugging her. He told her he was very sorry.  This is the story he told us.  He said, “Anthony called me around 3:00 p.m. this afternoon and asked me what I was doing and I told him nothing. Then Anthony said, ‘Well I am walking so why don’t you come pick me up?’  I told him I would and I did.  Around 7:00 p.m. we were riding around and a policeman pulled me over for swerving and Anthony freaked because he didn’t want to go back to jail so he swallowed three 8 balls of cocaine.  I took Anthony to Jason’s house because he told me to and he died there.”  Mother and I thanked him for telling us the truth so we could finally have some closure to this story.  We were both relieved now but Aunt Georgia didn’t believe what Rodney was saying. 

A few minutes later Rodney pulled me out in the hall, crying the entire time, and told me he wanted me to know the truth but he didn’t think my mother could handle it.  Then he told me this story, “Anthony called me this afternoon around 3:00 p.m. and asked me what I was doing and I told him nothing.  Anthony said, ‘Well I am walking so why don’t you come pick me up?’  I told him I would and I did.  Around 7:00 p.m. we were riding around and we passed a parked policeman.  The policeman followed us and turned on his lights and pulled me over.  I have neon lights running under my truck and the words “Game Over” in my back window, which are signs of a drug user or seller.  I pulled over and the policeman told me I was swerving.  Anthony told me that was a bunch of shit I wasn’t swerving.  Anthony told me I was pulled over because of the way my truck looked. 

While we were sitting there pulled over waiting on the cop to come to the truck Anthony asked me if I had something to drink.  I just happened to have an unopened can of Pepsi in my truck door and I handed it to him. In one motion I saw Anthony pop the top on the Pepsi, put something in his mouth and jerk his head back to swallow whatever it was he put in his mouth.  He then took a scale out of his pocket and hid it between the seat and the console. 

I asked Anthony what he swallowed and he told me three 8 balls of cocaine.  I said, ‘Dude that is a lot of Coke!  I don’t do Coke but if you would’ve told me I would’ve swallowed half of it.’

Then the cop walked up to the window and told me why I was being pulled over. He made us get out of the truck and searched the truck.  This whole time Anthony had cocaine in his stomach and it was dissolving. Once the cops let us go Anthony and I got back in the truck. 

I drove a short distance up the street to a stop sign and Anthony told me to stop the truck and he got out.  He was trying to throw up and he couldn’t.  He got back in the truck and told me that his legs were burning.  They felt like they were on fire. He told me he was dying and I told him ‘no you aren’t dying.’  Anthony started screaming in pain telling me his body was on fire and he was going to die.  I told him he needed to go to the hospital and Anthony told me, ‘No take me to Jason’s and he’d know what to do.’ I called Jason and asked him what to do and he told me to bring Anthony to his house and he’d take care of him so I did. 

When we drove up, Jason met us outside with a large bowl of hot pickle juice to make Anthony throw up.  That didn’t work so we went inside and Anthony went to the refrigerator and started drinking milk out of the carton but that didn’t work either. 

Anthony was leaning over the counter putting his fingers down his throat to make himself throw up and I was hitting him on the back to help him throw up.  Anthony stood up with his fingers in his mouth and started rocking back and forth.  I asked him what was wrong and he told me the counters were jumping out at him.  Jason said, ‘Call an ambulance!!!’ Then you could see Anthony’s muscles tightening up all over his body from his feet up.  His body was stiff and his fingers were still in his mouth.  Jason and I tried to pry his fingers out of his mouth but we couldn’t. 

We managed to get Anthony on the back porch where he collapsed and started having a seizure.  Then the fire department arrived and I heard them yell, ‘Clear!’ and I left the house because I couldn’t deal with that.” I told Rodney thank you for telling me the truth.  I’d heard so many different stories and I just wanted the truth and now I knew the truth.  I thanked him again and asked him if he wanted to go see Anthony, he said, “Yes” so I took him to the room.

I stood outside Anthony’s door while Rodney spoke with him. This is what I heard him tell Anthony, “Dog, only you and I know what really happened that night.  You have to get better.  You know I hate tattoos but I am going to get a tattoo just for you. Dude you got to get better.”  I don’t remember much else about that conversation but he was in there for a little while and then he came out.  I walked him back to the ICU waiting room where we joined the police officers and my family. 

Rodney was afraid to go home that night because of the threats Darren and the others had made to him.  He had to take his girlfriend home and then go to his house but the cops wouldn’t follow him home.  I asked them if they would put someone outside his house and keep an eye on him so he wouldn’t get harmed, they agreed to do that.

Later that morning about 6:00 a.m., this blonde female security guard (Christy) came to the ICU waiting room to check on us to see if we needed coffee, blankets, etc.  I was the only one awake and I told her, “No but thank you.”  Little did I know but she and I were going to become very close.

Tuesday morning was very rough for me because this was the day I was supposed remove life support.  To make it even worse, the kids kept coming to the ICU waiting room bothering us.  All I wanted was for Anthony to spend his final moments in peace.  By this time I’d become very selfish because I wanted to spend his final moments with him alone.  I didn’t want to keep having to entertain these kids.  

We later found out those same kids would call the nurse’s station pretending to be Anthony’s cousin, sister, friend, etc. The nurses would stop what they were doing in order to give these kids an update. This would take the nurses away from other patients they needed to be taking care of. The phone calls became very annoying so the nurses finally put a stop to them. 

We told the nurses we were the only family Anthony had in Florida and our family and friends would call our cell phones directly so no one should be calling the nurse’s station asking for information about Anthony.  We also told them they weren’t to give out any information to anyone about his condition.

Later that day, Christy came to the ICU waiting room to check on us but I was in there by myself.  She asked me who I was there to see, I told her my son was in ICU and they didn’t expect him to live much longer. She said, “That is you son!? I thought he was your brother!” I explained to her we didn’t really know what happened to him because we’d gotten several different stories from his friends.  She knew exactly who I was talking about and said, “Are you aware last night one of the kids that came to see Anthony checked himself in the Emergency Room with fake chest pains because he was trying to get admitted to ICU to see Anthony?”  I said, “I had no idea!!!” We both thought that was rather scary. She said, “As soon as they released this boy they told him he was to go nowhere near the 2^nd floor (ICU) and they watched him leave the hospital. I can’t believe your family left you up here all alone.  Where did they go?”  I told her, “They went to eat breakfast but that’s okay because I’d prefer to be on my own anyway.”  We visited a little while longer, and then she had to make her rounds.

Aunt Judy’s (Kim’s mother) sisters who live in Arkansas just happened to be in Florida visiting at that time as well, so they came by and spent the day with us.  They are hilarious which helped us get our minds off of what was going on plus it gave mother someone else to talk to.

It was really weird how many people in the family that live in other states just happened to be visiting in Florida at the time Anthony was in the hospital. I was very grateful these people came to check up on us.

Eddie checked on me daily to see if I was okay and how Anthony was doing but today was different, he really wanted to be there for me. He knew today I was going to have to make the hardest decision of my life and take my son off of life support. Eddie was a three to four day drive away from me and I told him we really weren’t sure how long he’d survive off the respirator. 

It took a little while to convince him by the time he got there we’d probably be on our way to Mississippi to bury Anthony and he could just meet me there. He told me to call him as soon as we removed life support so he’d know when to leave.  He was also concerned because there was a blizzard heading their way and he wanted to get out of Thompson before it hit.

Carrie, the girl, called me this morning and asked me what size ring Anthony wore. This broke my heart because I knew she’d probably decided she wanted to marry Anthony before he died and he’d not live long enough for her to do that. I told her not to because we didn’t know how much longer he’d live and it’d be pointless to buy one.  She insisted on getting one so I told her his class ring was a 10 but he was swollen so she may want to get an 11 if she insisted on doing that. 

Sometime that morning, two girls came into the waiting room, told me they were sorry about Anthony and they wanted to see him but I refused to let them.  I’d been nice to these kids long enough to get the information I needed from them and now I wanted them to go away.  I just wanted to spend the final moments with my son alone and that just wasn’t going to happen. 

One of the girls told me another girl was driving to the hospital but lived five hours away and was almost there.  I told her to tell the girl she wasn’t getting in to see him so she may as well go home.  Then the girl told me another girl was downstairs with some of Anthony’s belongings and some pictures, she wanted to come up to see him as well.  Before I could answer the girl, Aunt Georgia said she’d go down to get the things and she did. 

This girl just would not quit asking me if she could go back to see Anthony.  She was also telling me how many people were coming today to see him and so on and so on. Finally I stood up and I yelled, “Get out of here, just leave us alone!!!!!” The girl then told me I was an unfit mother and if I loved Anthony I’d let them see him.  Again I yelled, “Get out of here!!!!!” and the two of them left. I guess I was at my breaking point by this time and she was the one I lashed out on.

Looking back, I truly believe they just wanted to see how he was doing but we’d been through so much. I just wanted to spend my final hours with my son alone and not have to share him with his friends. I just wanted peace and quiet without all the chaos.

Aunt Georgia brought what the girl had given her and I placed them under my chair.  I just wasn’t ready to go through them right then.  However, Jim looked at the pictures. I asked him if I wanted to see them, he said, “Probably not” so I took his advice and didn’t look at them.  Susan brought a duffle bag with some of Anthony’s clothes in it and a shoe box that had shoes in it. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with all of these things but at least we had them back.

At some point in time Tuesday, I had ordered an MRI to see how much brain activity Anthony had. I just couldn’t remove him from the respirator not knowing what his brain activity was. My decision depended on those results because if he had a lot of brain activity I wouldn’t take him off of the respirator, if he had little brain activity I’d have to include other factors, and if he had no brain activity I was pretty sure I’d have to let him go.  I thought I’d have the results that day but I didn’t get them until the next day. That was a good thing because we got to spend another day with Anthony.

I’d come out of Anthony's room at some point that morning and the nurse asked me if I knew he didn’t have cocaine in his system. I said, “What???”  She said, "Yes, his drug test came back negative."  I said, "Oh my God, I’m right back where I started!!!!!” I thanked her and I walked off.  What I meant by that comment was I still didn’t know how he ended up in the hospital and evidentially the story Rodney told me wasn’t true either.

I was really getting frustrated at this point in time because all I knew was my son was lying there in the hospital bed dying and no one would tell me the truth about how he got there and these kids wouldn’t leave us alone.

Later that morning, Sylvia and the heart doctor came to the ICU waiting room. The two of them along with Jim, Georgia, Mother and I went into the nurse’s private room to discuss Anthony.  This was the first doctor I’d seen since I’d gotten there.  The doctor told me he wasn’t sure how much brain activity Anthony had but he assured me I was making the right decision by removing the life support system. Anthony’s body was shutting down and he would not survive much longer even on the respirator.

As we were talking he mentioned this didn’t seem like a normal cocaine overdose.  I asked him if he was aware there was no cocaine in Anthony’s drug test and he said, “What?!!” Sylvia looked at him and said, “The drug test results came back negative for cocaine.”  This was the first time the doctor had heard of this.  I told him I had requested a poison test several times since Anthony had been in the hospital but I couldn’t seem to get one.  He looked at Sylvia and said, “Run a poison test immediately!!!” I was relieved to know finally they were going to run the poison test.  He then proceeded to tell us something about Anthony’s case just didn’t seem right because the kids kept changing their stories, the staff at the hospital also suspected foul play.  However, no one would tell me that because they weren’t allowed to.

Finally, someone had started talking to me about what was going on and maybe now we could get to the bottom of this and find out what really happened to my son.

Not long after that I went to Anthony’s room by myself and I told him to hang on instead of going to the light like I’d told him to do before.  I told him we were going to do a poison test to see if he was poisoned and he needed to hang on just a little while longer so we could do the test.  As soon as I got that out of my mouth, a tear rolled down his cheek.  I got a wet paper towel and I wiped it off.  I don’t know if that meant he understood what I was telling him and he was relieved we finally figured it out or if he was upset because he had to hang on longer.  I will never know the reason for the tear but in my heart I believe it was because he was relieved we finally figured out what happened.

At lunch time everyone left to go eat lunch but I stayed behind as usual.  While everyone was gone I pulled out the pictures and looked at them, Jim was right I didn’t want to see them.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the girl Aunt Georgia got the pictures from was Carla. The pictures she sent me were pictures of Anthony high and drunk.  In one picture he was passed out in the tub with a pillow behind his head, another one he was pouring Wild Turkey into a shot glass, in another one he had a bread stick and was standing behind a girl poking it at her butt.  Needless to say, I could’ve done without those pictures.  I knew this side of Anthony existed because I’d talk to him when he was drunk but I’d never seen him that way. To this day I still have the pictures because they were taken only a few days before he died but I don’t like them.

After looking at the pictures I went in the hallway and called Eddie to give him an update. While I was on the phone I noticed a boy and a girl hanging around in the hallway.  I didn’t think anything about it at the time because they were sitting very quietly and minding their own business.  I told Eddie I had finally visited with the doctor and they were going to run a poison test on Anthony. As soon as I said that I noticed the girl looking at me.  I then wondered if they were hanging out to see Anthony or find out information about him. By this time I’d become suspicious of everyone, it never should’ve come to that.

Shortly after that Aunt Georgia and Jim came back from lunch and Jim said, “I see that boy is back.” I said, “What boy?” He pointed to the boy and girl in the hallway and said, “Him.”  I walked out in the hallway and asked them to leave. They said they had the right to sit there, I told them, “No you don’t because security has banned any kids from this floor.”  The boy then said his grandmother was in the ICU area, yeah right. 

Jim saw I was having problems with them so he walked out in the hallway and told them to leave or he was calling security, then they left.  We watched them get on the elevator but the elevator they got on was going up. When the elevator came back down it stopped on the second floor and they were still in the elevator.  I just stared a hole through the boy and the elevator doors closed with them on it.  This was just the beginning of the problems I’d have with those two.

Around 1:00 p.m. Christy came to get me to go eat lunch, she kept telling me I needed to eat to keep my strength up.  I wasn’t hungry at all but I hadn’t eaten much of anything since Sunday morning so I agreed to go to the cafeteria with her to eat something.  Even though I had very little money left, I reached in my pocket to pay for my lunch. Christy gave me one of her free lunch coupons so I didn’t have to pay. I thought that was very sweet of her.  While we were eating lunch, Christy asked me about Anthony so I told her the story up to that point. 

She said Carrie sounded like a very sweet girl then the two of us came up with this idea that I could marry them. I’d use Anthony’s class ring as the wedding ring, I’d hold the phone up to Anthony’s ear while Carrie asked him to marry her, I’d let her talk to him, then I’d pronounce them man and wife.  I know it sounds silly but she really felt bad because she’d turned him down earlier, she really did love him and this seemed to be the only way to marry them.

When we were walking back to ICU I saw that same boy and girl walking around the hospital so I pointed them out to Christy, she said she’d keep a watch on them.

After we ate, I called Carrie and asked her what she thought about the idea, she was very happy. Christy walked me back to ICU and just as she was about to leave this girl wearing scrubs and a name badge walked up to me.  I recognized her from the night before and I asked her if she worked there, she said, “No.”  Christy asked her if she was a member of the family, the girl said, “No.” She had a picture in her hand her little girl had drawn for Anthony and she was dropping it off on her way to nursing school. 

Christy then told her only family was allowed to be up there and she’d have to leave so she handed me the picture and left. Christy then looked at me and said, “I can’t believe it.  She was going to try to get back there to see Anthony.  She had a name badge on and everything.” I don’t think the young lady was trying to get back to Anthony’s room to see him, I truly believe the little girl had drawn the picture for Anthony and she was there to give it to me.  I have no idea what the picture was of or where it is, my guess is I threw it away.  Looking back, I wish I would’ve kept it. 

Later that afternoon Aunt Georgia, mother and I were in Anthony’s room when I made the call to Carrie.  I explained to Anthony that Carrie wanted to talk to him and I was going to hold the phone up to his ear.  I then told Carrie to go ahead and I’d listen for her voice to quit but I wouldn’t be able to hear what she was saying. When I no longer heard any sounds I put the phone up to my ear and asked her if she was finished, she said, “Yes”.  I then took Anthony’s class ring off of my finger and placed it on his the best I could because his fingers were bent and I couldn’t straighten them out.  I also knew if I got caught putting the ring on his finger I’d be in trouble because he wasn’t supposed to have any jewelry on. 

I told Carrie the ring was on his finger and asked her if she wanted to talk to him again, she said, “Yes.” I put the phone back up to his ear and when I no longer heard her talking I put the phone back up to my ear and asked her if she was finished, she said, “Yes.”

With the phone up to my ear in a very excited voice (hoping he would wake up) I said “We did it!!!! You finally got to marry Carrie and I got her as my daughter-in-law!!! I knew one day she’d be a part of our family!!!!!”  At that moment Aunt Georgia, mother and I looked up and Anthony’s blood pressure was starting to rise rapidly.  Aunt Georgia said, “You better stop now because his blood pressure is rising because he is excited.”  I think she was right.  I honestly think he knew he was married to Carrie and he was happy. 

Right after I unofficially married them, this very tall Chaplin came in Anthony’s room and asked how he was doing.  He explained to me he’d been checking up on Anthony the entire time he was there, I had no idea.  I looked at him and said, “I just unofficially married him and his girlfriend maybe you could do it for real.”  He remembered seeing Carrie at the hospital and commented on what a sweet and pretty girl she was.  He then walked over to Anthony, put his hand on Anthony and told him he had to wake up in order to really get married. Then he told Anthony he had the honeymoon ahead of him so he had to wake up to enjoy that.  As he started out of the room he turned to Anthony and said, “Son, you have to wake up because you have a wedding to attend.” I welcomed Carrie to the family and then I got off the phone.  Carrie is now in our family tree.

Later on Aunt Georgia and I were in the room with Anthony, he’d started to sweat so I got a cold, wet paper towel and started wiping down his forehead.  He had been running a fever the entire time he was in the hospital and I guess it was starting to break.  When I put that cold, wet paper towel on his forehead, his blood pressure started to rise, I was making him mad.  Aunt Georgia and I started laughing because he was getting mad. I told him, “Okay, okay I will quit” and his blood pressure came back down when I stopped wiping his forehead. 

While Aunt Georgia and I were in Anthony’s room she told me, “You know you and your mother need each other right now, you need someone to lean on.”  I guess she noticed how distant we had become.  I told her, “Well, tell her that. She is the one that keeps fussing at me.  I am trying to include her in this every way possible. I keep getting fussed at about everything I do and this is my son in here dying.”  She said, “I know but the two of you really need each other right now.” I said, “I agree but I don’t think that is going to happen because she won’t allow it.”  That was the end of the conversation.

I know in the beginning Anthony understood what was going on, he just couldn’t respond by talking.  His blood pressure would go up when he was happy or got upset and that is how we knew he knew what was going on. 

Later that day people discovered Anthony was my son and not my mother’s.  For some reason, everyone thought he was my brother and my mother’s son.  Once they realized he was my son they started feeling very sorry for me because they noticed I was by myself for the most part and they didn’t understand why my family wasn’t with me. 

The way this came about was there was another family that had been in the ICU waiting room the entire time Anthony was in the hospital.  They lived in Florida so they’d go home each night and come back the next morning.  Mother recognized one of the ladies as her dentist’s receptionist and spoke to her.

Not long after that, I was in the hallway by myself just trying to absorb everything when this same lady came out of the ICU waiting area and sat down beside me.  She asked me how my brother was doing and I very politely told her he was my son not my brother, her mouth dropped.  She said, “That is your son?” I said, “Yes.”  She said, “I thought he was your brother and so did everyone else.”  I told her, “No he is my son”.  You could tell then and there her heart went out to me.  We started talking about him and she told me she thought he’d been in a car wreck and I told her, “No.” 

She said she lived in the area where it happened and they heard this loud bang then shortly after that they heard sirens.  Her husband went outside to see what was going on and there were a lot of kids in the yard across the way.  He asked someone that passed by their house what happened and they told him someone was down (dead).  I told her what we thought had happened and asked her to keep her eyes and ears open to see if she might find out what really happened, I gave her all my contact information just in case. 

Her mother came out shortly after that and she told her mother Anthony was my son not my brother, the lady came over to me and hugged my neck.  Finally, after two long days of going through this by myself and fighting with my mother continuously I had someone to lean on. Not that I didn’t have Aunt Georgia and Jim but they had each other and I didn’t want to bother them.

While we were standing there the Chaplin that had come in Anthony’s room when I married him and Carrie walked by, the mother stopped him and they started talking.  He asked me how my brother was doing and I told him Anthony was my son.  Again, I got the same reaction. He said, “That is your son?!” He asked me if I cared if he prayed for me and my son and I told him that would be nice.  The young lady, her mother, the Chaplin and I stood in a circle with our arms around each other while he prayed.  This was the first time I’d cried at all about Anthony, I didn’t cry long just a few tears but I did cry. This is when I learned the Chaplin was the hospital Chaplin.

Sometime that day during visiting hours a young girl was standing outside of Anthony’s room just looking in at him.  I was standing in the hallway outside the ICU doors which were now open for visiting hours. When I saw her standing there I yelled, “Get away from there!!!  Get away from my son!!!”  She said, “I’ve come a long way to see him.” I cut her off and said, “I don’t care, just get away from him!!!” She then walked out of ICU.  I told mother about this later and mother believes it was Robbie one of Anthony’s old girlfriends that mother liked. She was upset with me for running the girl off and not telling her about this sooner.  Mother wanted to talk to Robbie and tell her about Anthony but she didn’t know how to contact her.  Again, I’d done something wrong.  How was I supposed to know she wasn’t one of the kids driving us nuts?

Tuesday evening, mother’s friend asked mother and me if we’d like to go with her and her husband to eat supper at a Mexican restaurant in town.  This is where they all used to eat when mother and daddy lived in Leesburg.  We took them up on their offer. It was so nice to get out of the hospital for a change.

I called Carrie (Chris’s step-mother) and told her to hold off on the funeral arrangements because we were not removing the respirator today.  I explained to her I was waiting on the MRI and poison test results to come back before making that decision. She sounded relieved and told me everything was ready and on hold and to call her back if and when we needed to proceed.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 in the morning around 2:00 a.m. Aunt Georgia and I were in the room with Anthony when the nurse came in and said they were ready to do the poison test. She had several vials of medicine and explained to Aunt Georgia and me how the test would work.  Up until this point Anthony was not responding to any testing they did, his eyes wouldn’t move when they dropped drops in them, nor would his feet move when they ran an object up through the center of them.  She explained if he’d been poisoned he’d respond in some way. No matter how small the reaction was, if there was any reaction, he’d been poisoned.  She also explained this was temporary and he’d go back to the way he was now a few minutes after receiving the medicine.  She had 10cc’s of medicine to give to him and she’d give it 2cc’s at a time.

Aunt Georgia stood at his feet, I stood by his hands, the nurse stood by his head, and a second nurse was standing behind me watching also.  The nurse gave him 2cc’s, we all stood there but nothing happened.  She waited the two minutes she was supposed to wait before giving the second 2cc’s then she said, “Okay here we go.”  She walked down to where Aunt Georgia was standing, she ran an object up the center of Anthony’s foot and his toes curled. We all looked at each other like did that really happen.  She repeated the process, again his toes curled.  You could see our excited faces but no one got too excited at this time. 

She then walked up to his head, opened his eye lid and dropped a drop in his right eye.  His eye jerked to the side real quick and then back to the center.  She checked the left eye the same way, it reacted the same way.  That was the end of her testing.  I looked at Aunt Georgia and I said with tears in my eyes, “I got my answer!”  Aunt Georgia nodded her head and again I said, “I got my answer!”  At this time I was relieved to know he was in there somewhere, I just had to find a way to get him to come out of the coma he was in.

We then went back to the ICU waiting room and told mother and Jim what had happened. Everyone had their hopes up at this time, forgetting the fact the nurse told us this wouldn’t last but a few minutes. 

Once I realized Anthony had been poisoned and he was somewhere inside there I got the nurse to pull the DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) sign off the door.  Becky and the other nurses were glad to see me do this because they thought I was letting him go to soon.  However, if I wanted the DNR sign back up there I had to get a doctor’s order.

Within an hour after his poison test, they moved Anthony from the room closest to the door in ICU to a room directly in front of the nurse’s station where they could keep an eye on him.  At this time we informed the nurses about the kids that kept coming up there to see Anthony and how we assumed it was because they were reporting back to Jason whether or not he was alive. It was obvious Jason wanted Anthony dead.  The nurses immediately called security and put them on alert when it was visiting hours, they were told to remove any kids from the 2^nd floor ICU area.

Wednesday morning, Sylvia brought the Neurologist (brain doctor) into the ICU waiting room to see me.  He’d run an MRI on Anthony to see if he had any brain activity and if so how much, the results showed very little brain activity.  The Neurologist told me this little activity wouldn’t get worse if anything it would get better over time. I got so excited because this was the best news we’d heard since Anthony went in the hospital and this meant he may get better after all.  I called Eddie, Carrie, and Carrie to let them know the good news.

Christy took me to lunch again that and this time she handed me four of her free lunch tickets so I wouldn’t have to pay for lunch for a while. I never said anything to anyone, because I didn’t want to ask my family for money, but I was out of money and unless someone bought me something to eat I had no food.  Now I knew I’d be able to eat and keep my strength up.  God was taking care of me.

When we went through the lunch line to pay for our food the cashier knew who I was and told me she was sorry about my son.  I had no idea who she was nor how she knew who I was, I then realized Christy must have told her about Anthony. 

After we got our food we sat down at a table and a lady walked up to Christy and sat down beside her.  She looked at me and Christy said, “This is the lady I was telling you about whose son is dying in ICU.”  The lady looked at me and told me she was very sorry.  I guess Christy was telling everyone about us.

That day at lunch I learned Christy had three children, two of which died at a very young age.  It’s amazing how God puts people in your life, even for a short time. God put Christy in my life for two reasons that week, so I’d be able to eat while I was at the hospital, and for me to have someone to lean on that understood what I was going through.

After we ate Christy had to make her rounds and asked me if I wanted to go with her so I did.  This took up some time and gave me something to do besides sit in the ICU waiting room. While we were making her rounds Christy told me she was there the night Anthony came to the hospital and she saw Susan.  Christy said Susan told her she gave the hospital the jewelry she wanted Anthony buried in and we weren’t getting the other jewelry because she paid for it and it was hers. I don’t know why but that didn’t surprise me.

That afternoon, Christy brought me a sympathy card, which really touched my heart. I thought that was very sweet of her.

Later during the day, mother and I were in the room with Anthony and his blood pressure started to skyrocket, it was 200/? I don’t know.  I don’t know what the bottom number was because I was concerned about the top number.  His eyes started rolling back in his head I stood in the doorway and said, “Sylvia.”  She didn’t hear me.  When I looked back, Anthony had gone into a seizure.  I yelled, “Sylvia, get in here.  Anthony is having a seizure!!!”  She immediately stopped what she was doing and came to attend to him and gave him some medicine to calm him down. 

That was the first seizure mother and I had seen him have but according to the nurses he was having several a day. I panicked when I saw his eyes roll back in his head because I thought he was dying. Later mother told me it scared her as well because she too thought he was dying. After that I knew when he was going to have a seizure and I’d call the nurse when his blood pressure would start to rise.

Since the Neurologist told me Anthony had little brain activity and I knew there was hope he might survive, I spoke with his kidney doctor and told him I wanted to start dialysis.  Since Anthony’s kidneys were not working properly he was very swollen from the fluid build-up in his body and he needed to have the fluid removed. The doctor was reluctant because he knew there was no chance of Anthony surviving and did everything he could to talk me out of this.  I refused because at this point I realized I had to do everything I could to save my son.  I told the doctor, “That is my son and I can’t give up without trying everything possible,” he lowered his head and said, “Okay.”  They started dialysis that afternoon and Anthony looked a lot better because a lot of the swelling had gone down.

The girl and guy that kept hanging out on the 2^nd floor, the ones that Jim ran off, were back in the hospital that day.  I was sitting in the ICU waiting room when the elevator doors opened and there they were, but the guy saw me so they stayed on the elevator.  I pointed at him and then put my hand up to my head as if to make a phone call, he knew I meant I was calling the police and I did just that.

I was told to meet the officers at the Emergency Room which was next to the hospital so I walked out of the hospital. Sitting on the park bench in front of the hospital, were the boy and girl I had just run off.  As I walked past them, I informed them the police had been called and I was going to meet them, then the boy said something to me so I flipped him off and kept walking. I went to the Emergency Room and waited in the lobby for the police to show up.  I saw the officer drive by me headed towards the hospital itself so I walked out of the Emergency Room to flag him down.

As I was explaining the situation to the police officer the boy and girl were still sitting on the bench watching me.  While I was speaking with the police officer a second police car pulled up with a male and a female officer in it.  The officers got out of their car and walked over to the boy and the girl sitting on the bench and got their side of the story.  When they came to me they were all excited and wouldn’t listen to anything I was trying to say.  The female officer wouldn’t listen to me at all which really frustrated me.  She told me the girl told her she was pregnant with Anthony’s baby and I told the officer that ten different girls had told me that since I’d been there.  I honestly thought I was going to be the one going to jail because I was arguing with the female cop. I couldn’t get a word in edge wise so I said to her, “Would you just listen to me and quit interrupting me?!!!!!”  I said it before I realized what I was saying and I just stood there after I said it waiting on her to slap the handcuffs on me.  Why not, nothing else was going right.

As we were standing there Christy was leaving the hospital and I flagged her down to try to get her to explain to the police officers what had been going on.  That didn’t help because Christy walked over to the boy and girl and got up in their faces yelling at them. She finally got one of the officers to listen to her but they still didn’t understand what was going on.

I finally pulled the first officer to the side and explained to him what happened and told him I just wanted these kids to leave us alone. I told him it was tough enough having to take my son off the respirator and the last thing I needed was these kids harassing us the whole time.

While we were standing outside, the second male officer called me over to his car and asked me what was going on. I was explaining to him my uncle had run those two kids off several times and they’d been removed from the ICU unit but the officer didn’t really seem to care.  Jim and Aunt Georgia left to go get something to eat so I called them to see how much longer it’d be before they got back to the hospital so they could explain the situation better to the police officer. Jim said they were almost there and when they drove up Jim and Aunt Georgia walked over to the officer I was talking to. Jim explained the situation but the officer still didn’t seem to care. 

Soon after that, the boy got up, went to get his blazer, drove it under the awning in front of the hospital and had the music up real loud.  This is against hospital rules but the officer didn’t say anything to him.  Jim made a comment to the boy to turn down the music because the officer didn’t seem to be doing anything about it. The officer told Jim he’d take care of it then he told the boy to turn down the music.  The boy ignored him and the officer again told him to turn the music down.  The boy turned it down a little bit but it was still loud.  The police officer told him again to turn down the music he turned it down more.  Then the girl got in the blazer and as they drove away the boy turned the music up again, very disrespectful but what else would you expect from them, right.

After I finally got all three officers to understand what was going on, we were talking about Anthony and I thanked them for their help. I told them I was going to the Emergency Room to fill out some paperwork requesting Anthony’s medical records and interestingly enough, all three officers walked me to the emergency room.  They told me they knew a back way and I’d get waited on a lot quicker. 

Well, the three of them were walking very fast and I was unable to keep up with them because the week before all of this happened I’d broken my big toe on my right foot. I finally caught up with them and while we were waiting on the lady to bring me the request form the female officer told me she was sorry about my son.  I apologized to her for yelling at her and thanked her for not arresting me, we all laughed and shortly after that they left.

Because so many kids had been calling the ICU waiting room we’d asked the volunteer to tell them we were no longer there. That afternoon, Rodney called the ICU waiting room and I answered the phone because the volunteer had gone to lunch.  Rodney sounded very nervous and told me police officers were outside his house and they wouldn’t go away. I said, “Well, isn’t that what you wanted?  They are protecting you from Darren and his goons.”  What Rodney didn’t know was they were actually there to arrest him as soon as Anthony died because he was the last person to see Anthony alive and well.  He was their number one suspect in Anthony’s death and I wasn’t about to tell him the real reason they were there.  Maybe the kids did tell me the truth that night, maybe they knew something I didn’t. If Rodney really did have something to do with Anthony’s death, there is no way he would’ve told me what actually happened.

Since Anthony was stationary and we knew the results of the poison test and the MRI, mother and I decided we would spend the night with the lady and man that took us to eat Mexican food the night before.  We both needed a bath and we were just exhausted from sleeping on the love seat in the ICU waiting room or sleeping slumped over Anthony’s bed.  We needed a good night’s sleep in order to keep our strength up because we had no idea how much longer we’d be in the hospital.

While mother was in the shower, I went through Anthony’s things the kids had brought to the hospital.  In his duffle bag were some of his clothes along with all the letters and pictures everyone had written him while he was in jail.  I sat down on the edge of the bed and I read the letters and looked at each picture.  Some of the letters I read were from me to him. It was nice to know he’d held on to them all this time. 

In his shoe box were some shoes and tucked away in the side of the box was the title to his car along with his social security card.  I knew Susan must not have known those things were in there or I wouldn’t have gotten them back.  She kept everything else that was worth something and there is no doubt she would’ve kept them if she knew they were in there.

Thursday, March 15, 2007 that morning, just as I was sitting down to eat breakfast Aunt Georgia called me to let me know I needed to come back to the hospital as soon as I could because Anthony had taken a turn for the worst overnight. She said the nurse that was working that night said he was going into some stage, I forget the name but it is where your toes start curling when you are dying and they were turning purple. She also told Aunt Georgia the reflexes in his feet, from the poison test we did the night before, were due to him dying as well.  I got tears in my eyes but I managed not to cry because mother and her friend were looking at me to see how he was doing, when they saw me they knew something was wrong.  Mother was eating breakfast and when she saw me she pushed her plate away, I never ate.

As soon as we got back to the hospital I went straight to the nurse’s station.  I was very irate at this time and I rather loudly said, “Sylvia, take Anthony off of DNR and off of dialysis because I don’t want him suffering any longer. The only reason he is still on dialysis and has a DNR sign on his door is because I am trying everything I know to save my son and then we got a call this morning from Aunt Georgia telling us he was going to die anyway.”

Sylvia walked over to where I was, put her arm around my shoulders and started walking with me to calm me down.  She said, “The nurse had no business telling your aunt that because she is no doctor and you don’t need to make a rash decision like that.  You need to wait and talk to the doctor before making any decisions.”  Then she said something that surprised me.  She said, “You, your mother, and your aunt, are three of the strongest women I know.”  I asked her, “Why?” She said, “Because the three of you ladies haven’t gotten any sleep and there is at least one of you in your son’s room at all times.  You three have managed to hold it together very well and because of this you are three very strong women.”  As bad as things had been, this made me feel good.  The three of us were definitely exhausted but Sylvia was right, we did what we had to do without any complaints.

Shortly after talking to Sylvia I calmed down and realized she was right so I went into Anthony’s room to spend some alone time with him.  While I was in there talking to Anthony he yawned this baby yawn, for any of you mothers out there you know what I mean.  When babies are first born they yawn different then they do when they are a little older. I knew that yawn well and I hadn’t seen it in nineteen years. When I saw him yawn my heart sank because I knew then he had no brain activity and I was going to have to let my son go. 

I stood there for a few more minutes coming to grips with what was going on with my son and the moments to come in the near future. I knew at that moment I was going to have to take Anthony off of life support but I also knew once he’d passed away I’d be able to say I’d done everything I could to save my son.

A little while later one of the doctors, I’m not sure which one but I had seen him before, came by to check on Anthony. I told him Anthony yawned an infant yawn that morning and it was time to let him go. The doctor knew exactly what I was talking about he just shook his head and told me he agreed it was time to let him go.

That afternoon I spoke with the heart doctor again and he agreed we needed to stop the dialysis, put back up the DNR sign and remove the respirator.  As I said before that was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.  I knew now I’d done everything possible to save my son’s life and he just wasn’t going to make it.

As soon as the doctor left, I took a couple of minutes to gather my thoughts and get my head on straight. I had some phone calls to make in order to get everyone ready for the next step we had to face and this wasn’t going to be easy.

First I called Carrie (Chris’s step-mother) and told her to go ahead with the funeral plans because we were taking Anthony off of the respirator today. Carrie told me she was very sorry and not to worry about things on that end because they’d be taken care of.  You have no idea what a relief that was not to have to call and make the funeral arrangements myself, I will always be grateful to her for that.

Then I called Angie and told her to go over to mom and dad’s house to be with dad when I called to tell him we were taking Anthony off of the respirator.  Anthony was my father’s life and we were all afraid of how Anthony’s death would affect him. Nine years prior to this, Daddy had a heart attack and since we weren’t sure how he’d handle this we didn’t want him to be alone when he heard the news.

Angie told me to give her about thirty minutes to get to their house, I told her I would.  I called Angie’s cell phone about thirty minutes later to see if she was there and she was. I then hung up the phone, took a deep breath and called my father.  I told him what we were going to do and let him know I’d done everything I could to be sure Anthony wasn’t coming back to us and daddy understood.  He got very quiet and I asked him if he was okay, there was a long pause and then he said, “I’ll be okay.” 

After I got off of the phone with daddy, I called Eddie and told him to get the boys and go ahead to his mother’s house in Mississippi, mother and I would meet them there when it was all over. After Eddie and the boys got on the road, Eddie called me and told me it was snowing when they left.  Good thing we didn’t decide to remove Anthony from the respirator at a later date because Eddie and the boys probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of Thompson.

Today was a very peaceful day and I was so thankful for that, no phone calls or visits from unwanted kids. I called Tina tonight to wish her a Happy Birthday but she said she wasn’t celebrating it because we were going to take Anthony off of the respirator shortly and she just didn’t feel she should celebrate.  Her feeling that way was very moving to me, she thought about my son instead of herself, not many people would do something like that. I asked her if Greg would do the eulogy because when Anthony came to me about planning his funeral we both agreed Greg should do the eulogy. Greg used to be a preacher and he’d done Nannaw’s eulogy so I thought it would be nice if we asked him to do Anthony’s as well. Tina said she didn’t think Greg would be able to do it but she’d ask him and he agreed to do it, I was relieved.  Now everything was ready for Anthony when he died.

That night at 8:00 p.m. the nurses asked us to leave Anthony’s room so they could remove him from the respirator and clean him up before allowing us to come back in.  In about thirty minutes they called us back into his room and Aunt Georgia, Jim, mother, the Chaplin, Becky and I all stood around the bed waiting for the worst.  Becky had just gotten off of work but because she’d been with Anthony from the beginning she wanted to be there to tell him bye. That meant a lot to me.

We all stood there for a few minutes waiting for his vital signs to decrease but nothing happened.  Thirty minutes later Becky said, “Well, I’ll see you guys in the morning because he isn’t going anywhere tonight.  He will still be here in the morning.” 

As soon as they took Anthony off of the respirator they put him on a high dosage of morphine so he wouldn’t be in any pain.  I thought his was a very nice thing to do since he had no way of telling us if he was hurting or not.  The nurse also explained as the time got nearer they would up his dosage of morphine so he could go peacefully.

The Chaplain asked me if I had let Anthony’s brothers and step-father tell him bye and I told him, “No.”  He said, “I think you need to call them and let them tell him bye.”  So I called Eddie and told him what the Chaplin had suggested. I put the phone up the Anthony’s ear and let each of them tell him bye.  I have no idea what they said to him but Eddie does, to me that was a private moment between them and no one else should know what was said. 

Shortly after Anthony was removed from the respirator I realized I wanted to use the poem “Remember Me” at Anthony’s funeral.  That is the poem Anthony liked so much that was on the inside cover of Timmy’s funeral program.

I knew Anthony loved that poem and I really wanted to have it at his funeral but Eddie had already left the house so I had no way of getting it.  Suddenly I remembered Anthony had a tattoo of this poem, in a scroll, on his arm so I turned his arm over and copied it word for word. Now I could relax because I knew this would make Anthony very happy. Below is the poem in its entirety:

Remember Me

To the living, I am gone,

To the sorrowful I will never return,

I am at peace with myself and the Lord,

I cannot speak, but I can listen

I cannot be seen but I can be heard,

So remember me in your heart and thoughts,

Remember me in your memories,

Remember me of the times we loved,

Remember me of the times we laughed,

Remember me of the times we cried,

Remember me of the times we fought

And always remember me of the times we lived together.

I am resting in peace with the highest hope that some day

We shall all unite again in God’s Kingdom.

 

That night Will and Laura (his wife) took mother, Aunt Georgia, and Jim out to eat but I stayed in the nurse’s room while they were gone because I was going over everything in my mind trying to figure out what to do next. When they came back they brought me a plate of food and we all sat in the nurse’s room discussing Anthony. 

Several hours after removing Anthony from the respirator, his vitals were still very strong so I slept in the nurse’s room floor and mother stayed in Anthony’s room.  We agreed that at 2:00 a.m. we’d switch out so we could both get a little sleep. At 2:00 a.m. mother called me and we traded rooms, when I got in the room Anthony’s vitals were still very strong. I just couldn’t believe he’d held on that long, the nurses said it was because he had a very strong heart.  Even though he had a heart attack during all of this, and everything else failed him, his heart was very strong and it was keeping him alive.

Aunt Georgia and Jim never left the hospital the entire time Anthony was in there until Thursday night and they were sure he wouldn’t die during the night. Thank you both so much for doing that for my son, it means a lot to me and I honestly believe he knew you were there in the beginning and that eased his fear.

Friday, March 16, 2007 All day long mother, Aunt Georgia and I took turns with Anthony, some of the time the three of us would be in the room together.  As the day progressed, his room started smelling more and more like death, I know that smell because I worked in a hospital for eight years and there is no other smell in the world like that one.  At one point the nurse explained to us one of three things would happen to Anthony.  His blood pressure would skyrocket, he’d have a heart attack and die or his vitals would just stop and he’d pass away. I knew the time was getting near because his vitals were very slowly starting to drop and they had upped his dosage of morphine quite a bit by now. 

By this time we were all mentally and physically drained and we weren’t sure how much longer we could hold out.  As for me, this was the 4^th time I’d told my son bye and it was really starting to wear me down. Jim noticed this so he took me down the hall to the ICU waiting room to give me a little break. I was so tired and so worn out I just wanted this whole ordeal to be over with so I very calmly asked him, “Why won’t he just die?”  Jim explained to me the body goes through a process and until that process is complete he will not die.  Anthony’s toes were already purple, curling under and the smell of death in the room would knock you down, I just didn’t think I could take much more.  After about thirty minutes we walked back into the room where all four of us either stood or sat and watched Anthony’s vital signs slowly drop. We prayed this wouldn’t go on another day but it looked as if it would. 

At 8:15 p.m. I was sitting in a chair next to Anthony’s head, mother was sitting in a chair next to me and Aunt Georgia was standing behind the two of us when the strangest thing happened to me. My chest got real heavy and I could hardly breathe, it felt as if Anthony was lying on my chest, then I realized I was looking through these very small slits in my eyes and everything was foggy.  As I sat there wondering what was going on and trying to pay attention to what was happening, I realized I felt like I was dying. My chest was very heavy and I was seeing through the same slits Anthony was seeing through, I was dying.  I realized this must be the way Anthony was feeling and it was very frightening. Just as soon as the feeling came over me it left and I was fine. 

I stood up and said, “He is dying now, he has finally let go, and he’ll be dead within thirty minutes.”  Aunt Georgia said, “I hope you are right but that doesn’t seem possible because he is still doing so well.”  Almost instantly his vital signs started dropping and we all stood there watching his vitals get lower and lower. I sat back down in my chair, put my hand on Anthony’s shoulder and asked mother to read off his vitals to me, thinking it would be a little while longer. 

As she read the numbers to me I remember thinking, “Finally, it’s over, my son is going to a better place and will no longer be in any pain and we’ll be able to get some rest.” As we all sat there totally exhausted, mother started reading off Anthony’s vitals to me.  I don’t remember the numbers exactly but I remember paying attention to the top number instead of the bottom number and each time she read the number it was lower and lower.

When his blood pressure was 70/40 I stood up, placed a pillow beside his head to keep it stable, put my arm across his chest and I placed my head on his head.  At that point I made my son a promise. I promised him that I would buy the plot next to his and we would be together once again just him and me the way we were when he was a little boy. Mother continued reading off Anthony’s vitals to me and they were still the same.  I started talking to Anthony and telling him to look for Nannaw, mother said his blood pressure just dropped to 60/30. I then told him to look for Chris and JP. Mother then said 20/…. and when she said 20/… I started to panic. 

I said, “I’m going to freak, I’m going to freak!!!!!” Mother said, “No you are not, you have to stay strong you can’t do that to me!” I said, “You don’t understand, I’ve never in my life touched a dead person before and I’m going to freak!!!” She said, “Lori, this is Anthony, our Anthony and it’ll be okay!”

I never moved from the way I was laying the entire time we were talking then she said, “Flat line…. flat line…… flat line…..”  I raised my head up and saw a trickle of blood come out of his nose and I knew it was over. I then looked at the clock and it was 8:51 p.m. almost exactly thirty minutes after I told them he would die in thirty minutes. The actual time of death was documented at 8:51 p.m.

I remember saying, “It’s over. It’s over. Thank God it’s over.”  My baby had died in my arms and I would not trade that for anything on this earth. Believe it or not in the final minutes of Anthony’s life, mother and I finally leaned on each other.  If it weren’t for her telling me, “This is Anthony, our Anthony and it’ll be okay”, I would’ve lost it then and there but my mother helped me keep it together. 

Almost immediately, Aunt Georgia walked up to me, put her arms around my waist and told me I needed to sit down because I didn’t look so good. I sat down but I never cried, believe it or not, I was at peace and I knew my son was at peace so I didn’t see a reason to cry. 

I sat in the chair but only for a few minutes before I got up and started rubbing my fingers through Anthony’s hair, he had beautiful thick, black, curly hair and all the girls loved it.  I just kept doing that over and over without ever saying a word to him. While I was rubbing my fingers through his hair, mother, Aunt Georgia, Jim and I all started talking and Aunt Georgia told us every time she’d go in the room with him she’d sing to him like she used to when he was a little boy.  She said she knew she couldn’t sing but she was hoping between her singing constantly and singing off key he’d wake up and say “Would you please stop singing?!!!!!” It never worked though.

I rubbed my fingers through Anthony’s hair for an hour and I remember his head started getting cold and I told him, “Son, I have to stop now because you are getting cold and I can’t deal with that.  I love you.” Shortly after that the nurses asked us to leave the room so the people from the morgue could come get Anthony. 

They were going to do an autopsy on him to be sure there was no foul play because he was so young and healthy and died so suddenly, they wanted to know why.

After they ran us out of the room, I went to the nurse’s station and started the procedure for the autopsy which was rather tough.  Mother, Jim and Aunt Georgia left the ICU area and went back to the waiting room until I finished the paperwork.

As we were discussing the paperwork for the autopsy, the people from the morgue wheeled Anthony out of his room. I turned around and watched my son leave the hospital room he’d been in for the past week.  It was really over now.

Mother and I spent that night with her friend that took us to eat Mexican food a couple of nights before and Aunt Georgia and Jim stayed with their friends Bob (the man that picked me up from the airport) & Cocoa.  Aunt Georgia gave mother and me a pill to help us sleep that night but I only took half of mine because I was exhausted anyway. I slept well that night and woke up the next morning lying on my back which was unusual, I never slept on my back but Anthony slept on his back all the time.

Remember when I told you Anthony came to me and wanted to plan his funeral because he didn’t believe he’d live to be eighteen? We were both wrong but not by much. I wish we would’ve been wrong by many, many, many years. He made it to nineteen and died two months before he turned twenty. I truly believe the only reason he lived to be nineteen was because he spent his 19^th birthday in jail.  If your children ever ask you to help them plan their funeral it’s not a very pleasant subject to discuss.  However, if they have a gut feeling they may be right, I’d advise you to sit down with them and make the plans because it made things so much easier on me when the time came.  I wouldn’t have had the first clue where to bury him if we had not had that conversation.