Tim: Mom, when we were talking the other day about money that's available going forward, we moved that small CD into your bank account. Oh. Alright? Okay. It doesn't make a difference. It's just better to have it there.  

Mom: What do you mean it doesn't make a difference?

Tim: Well, the interest on that thing was less than 1 percent a year. Okay. Really, and then they charge you a little something to maintain it. It doesn't make sense. So you moved it. Yeah, so there's 35, 000 in that bank account now. And you still got the Jordan backup of I think it's up to 70. Okay. It was 76, it went to 66, or it was 78. Does everything recover? A little bit, yeah, not all the way. But it'll, the stock market fluctuates.  

Mom: Well, until I die, who cares?

Tim: Remember the day we talked about what you wanted when you died? Have you ever put that down on paper? Do you know what you want?  

Mom: I don't want to be cremated, number one. Alright. And?  

Tim: What else?

Mom: I don't want any friction within my family members.  

Tim: Can't imagine that. Pardon me? I can't imagine that.  

Mom: Well, I hope not.

Yeah. And, uh, I want everything settled equally.  

Tim: You've already made clear of that in your will, I think, haven't you?

Mom: I don't know from that will. That's old.  

Tim: So, how old is it?

Mom: Well, quite a while. I don't like, my three grandkids aren't mentioned in it. I think it's be Colleen and Maureen.  

Tim: I'm not sure. I was,  

Mom: you looked at it recently, I think.

Tim: No, I saw it in your bottom...in that case. I didn't examine it at all, but, well, you should. Well, I'll speak to Brian. I think they, they made a will after Colleen died.  

Mom: Ask Brian, I can't remember.  

Tim: But a will, you know, doesn't exactly dictate what you want at the time of your death, because you take a will out to Lockport or whatever, you probate it, whatever you need to do. People need to make their wishes about that time of death activity known separate from a will, you know? Well Like Nick Forrester, you know, he said In his will, he said he wanted a party. Everybody invited, no food, alcohol only. It's in his will. I said, Nick, nobody, people won't see this because you have some assets that's going to have to be probated.

I mean, your executor, whoever that is, I forget, could, you know, say, I know what's in Nick's will, he wants a party. He named the place he wanted it at, you know. He's 58 years old. He, of course, he was going in for heart surgery when he did that, but  

Mom: Well, I don't know. I think you kids are well educated and can take care of any arrangements.

Tim: Uh Hardison or Rooney?  

Mom: Hardison. There's not going to be anybody come. They're all dead ahead of me. I don't have a damn friend.  

Tim: Friends will come of your family. You know, Kevin's group, and mine, and Brian's, and they'll be You know what I think about this?

Mom: I do wish I could have a Service at the church. I don't go, but, uh, I can't see myself or my family at any other church.

Tim: No, I can't either. So that would be another wish. Alright. Do you want to write anything? You want read at your service? Some people do that. Here's a letter from Grandma. No. I saw that once at St. Mark's in Buffalo.

Mom: I think Brian, I don't know if you did, but Brian did a Eulogy at Dad's funeral. I still remember.

And I remember that. Let him rest or something like that. The what? Let him rest.  

Tim: Oh yeah, that was great. Yeah. Very, very nice. He said he was funny too, remember? He talked about how Dad used to come. We'll have Kevin do it for me. Kevin, you want Kevin to eulogize you? How about Dennis playing some music?

Mom: That would be nice.

Tim: Well, you need to make those wishes known. I think Brian should do the eulogy. He's good at it. Well, maybe you should have an open mic, anybody who  

Mom: What will you do? You're my best caretaker.  

Tim: Yeah, well, I do that out of love. I don't need anything.

Mom: Well, that's why I would have you say, Do something at the funeral service out of love.

Tim: How about an open, uh, casket?  

Mom: Oh, yes. If I'm not this shrivelled up .....

Tim: I don't know why I even talk about it. You got me thinking about it the other day. I forgot what we were talking about. Funerals or something. They're not having funerals for anybody. You know, it's terrible. Friend of mine in Buffalo died on May 5th. Paul Cleary. Great guy. Lawyer. He was 69 years old. He retired two years ago because he was in bad health.

I talked to him once in a while. He was a fantastic guy. He helped me on some cases. He and his wife went shopping the other day, May 5th, to Wegmans or something, and he waited outside. She was coming out with the groceries and she saw him. She described it. She said he slowly went down to the sidewalk, just slow, it looked like slow motion to her.

She got over to him, uh, 50 yards, 25 yards away, and he was dead. Oh God. Cardiac arrest. They can't have a funeral? Well, I guess you can have a funeral, but they're weird. They're not having church services anywhere. I guess what they do, uh, somebody else told me they had a service at a funeral home. No more than eight or, eight or so people at a time.

They had to keep their distance. So people waited outside in their cars or in line. Maybe 50 people wanted to go in, so you couldn't stick around. You go in, you pay your respects. It's different. That will end, though. I mean, that's going to be over with by, I hope, by July. So stick around till after that. I try.

You'll be around five more years. No. You don't think? People can't predict their own death very well.  

Mom: Brian said I'd live to 107, remember?

Tim: Did he? That's 10 more years. Almost. That'll be 2030.

You've seen a lot of decades already.

What did we count, 11 presidents? I went over them with Ken Cooley. He was talking about his mother. We went over the presidents. We forgot Coolidge. We had to go back and count again, you know. Coolidge before, uh, Hoover. I think he was one term though, right? Yeah. I don't remember.  

Mom: I was too young.  

Tim: Yeah, after Wilson, Coolidge, and Hoover, they each were one term, I think.

I don't even know the priest over at St. Peter's, do you? No. Doesn't matter. No. I've become pretty friendly with Fr. Joe at, uh, St. Mark's. He's the one who gave Katie First Communion privately. He calls me once in a while. He's got me in this email group with four or five men, four or five women. He shares things with us.

He's a really good guy.

I've been watching him on, uh,  

Mom: Well, I don't know how, but I remember Brian had a Niagara Priest for Maureen.  

Tim: Yeah, I remember that too, yeah.

Mom: I sure don't want a Colleen thing. I've never been happy about that celebration.  

Tim: The one at the Riverside, Water Street? Yes. Why? What would you want?  

Mom: Well, there was one in Ohio.

That was nice. That was not bad.  

Tim: That had a lot more, I hate to use the word class, but that had a lot more class than Water Street.  

Mom: Well, down here, Rolf and their family all sat over in a corner. They didn't mix with anybody. I was just very unhappy about the whole thing. I much rather would have had a Harison funeral  

Tim: She had not, she had no, uh, no funeral, no real funeral, did she?

No. Why? That must have been her wishes though. Mom,  

Mom: were they or were they Rolfe's?  

Tim: I don't know. I would thought you would've had a, or the kids, I don't know. I assume that somebody, most likely her spouse, said here's what she said she wanted. I mean, she was competent until the, practically the moment of her death.

Right. I don't know. So what do you want? After we go to Hardison, and then go to St. Peter's. What do you want to, uh, you want to go to, uh, the country club? You want to go to people gather, you know, and reminisce? And have a cup of coffee and a Danish? Fire Hall. You serious?  

Mom: I'm not fancy country club?  

Tim: Okay, I'm just, I'm not encouraging anything, I'm just exploring with you.

Mom: If my house was bigger, I'd have it here like we did for Dad.  

Tim: Yeah, we could put up a tent if you die in good weather. I don't care. No? Well, you don't have to get the fine details. I just wanted to talk to you about it. But that's interesting. I didn't know that you weren't happy with the Colleen event.  

Mom: I wasn't?

No.  

Tim: How about you? You know me, I went around to talk to everybody. I was okay.  

Mom: I remember sitting at the table with June and, and uh, Was Irish alive then? Irish, yes. And I sat there. No family around me.  

Tim: Oh, well that's our fault.  

Mom: Well, you were busy at the door the most of the time. And  

Tim: I love talking to that Candy Marabelli.

She's fun. I spent 20 minutes with her, moved on to somebody else,

but I don't remember the food or anything.  

Mom: I don't either.  

Tim: That was in, uh, that was in March, right? Yes. And so it wouldn't have been nice weather for the river to be a factor. No, the one out in Ohio is May. Yeah, I remember that. About a year ago, about, about eight years ago today. I think it was May 6th, though.

Was it? I'm not sure.

Mom: I'm not either.

Tim: Well, alright, but we'll have some, something. You serious about the fire hall? I'd rather go to someplace on Center Street, maybe. Okay. No, I just said fire hall. You know, what Gallo's doing there at the corner of 4th and Center. Richardson property. He's gutted it. He's gonna have an event center or a banquet hall.

Maybe use that. Or the hotel at the bottom of the hill. Yeah. No? I don't think so. The pipes will be leaking. Alright, well, that's good that you don't mind talking about it. You're not afraid of death, are you? My doctor told me at my physical the other day. That he, he, he sees two kinds of patients. Patients that are afraid of death and patients that aren't afraid of death.

Mom: I'm not afraid. I just hope I go to sleep. I know. Do it that way. They have no choice.  

Tim: He actually, you know, he's, he's a family doctor, but he really has a hang up over people lingering forever in a nursing home with no mental  

Mom: Don't let that happen to me.  

Tim: Well, you don't want to, you don't want to cut your life short.

Mom: Well, if I'm not with it, I do.  

Tim: Yeah, well, I wonder what your health care proxy says, do you know? No. You know, the health care proxy says don't do any extraordinary measures or do it. Aren't you my health care proxy? I think Brian is.  

Mom: No. He's money. You're proxy for my health.

Tim: I'll take a look. You and Margie.

Really?  

Mom: I think so.  

Tim: Geez. I didn't know that.  

Mom: Is there something written out?  

Tim: Yeah. It's in there. It's in that Next time I'm here, we'll dig out that, uh, box. Your metal box. Okay. I'm sure it's in there.  

Mom: I didn't know I had one.  

Tim: Yeah, living, it's called a healthcare proxy and living will, they're combined. Oh. The living will is not a will.

That's the thing. Part of the thing with the health care proxy that says either keep me alive at all costs, you know, like those people that are in a coma for 10 years, or keep me alive as long as I have certain quality of life, and when I don't anymore, don't do extraordinary things. Ventilators and, you know, whatever they call it, artificial breathing machine, I don't know, I guess that's what a ventilator is.

Those type of things. You wouldn't want that. No. Would you? Nobody wants it, but people choose to do it. How could anybody want that? You know who wants it? The family of people who are undergoing it. They say, keep mom alive, keep dad alive, keep my child alive. You hate to let go. I think that's the, a lot of the overriding thinking of some people, of people that choose extraordinary measures.

That's what my doctor says. He said, If you saw the health care costs for those kind of things, they're way, way more than they should be. Just everyday costs. And everyday costs, yeah. I mean, keeping somebody alive on a ventilator, I don't know how much it costs. At Memorial Hospital, it probably costs 5, 000 a day.

Maybe more. But, I mean, life or death probably shouldn't be based on dollars and cents either. Do you think? Yes. Somewhat?  

Mom: Yes. I'm sure they are.  

Tim: Well, these doctors, you know, Doctor, or Governor Cuomo thought doctors in New York were going to have to decide. They'd have three people that needed a ventilator.

One would be 80, one would be 50, one would be 30. Which one, if they have one ventilator, which one do you give it to? The 30 year old, the 50 year old, or the 80 year old?  

Mom: What was his response?

Tim: That I hope, he said, I hope I never have to make that choice, or one of the doctors that works in the health system.

Doctors in Italy, during the height of their, uh, uh, coronavirus pandemic, they were making those choices. I heard one of them on NPR saying, the hardest thing he ever done, he had ever done. 80 year old, 50 year old. I forget what he chose. I think he chose the 80 year old, but I'm not sure.

Highest bidder. No, I don't know. Probably. But what if that 80 year old was healthy as well? No. Dying. You know, what if that had some underlying condition like dementia? Yeah. You know? And he wasn't going to recover, she wasn't going to recover from the dementia. Do you say, okay, this 50 year old is going to die because he's not, she's not getting a ventilator.

The 80 year old will keep a person alive with dementia. They're tough choices. I had one occasion in Vietnam where we had to triage people from an accident, I think I told you about this, where a chopper landed in the back of a truck. The guys with their heads cut off. Of course, you don't triage them, but they triage people that Needed immediate attention.

People that first people needed no attention, immediate attention, and somebody who could get it. Later on, I guess there was a third, the third ca, the category was, I forget if the people who didn't need attention were a category. I think it was these people are gonna die. Forget about them. These people might live with some help immediately.

And these people, hold on, they're bleeding, but they'll be, they're not bleeding that bad. That was terrible. About 30 people in that group. Who made the decision? There was a major there. A major was in charge. But I, I worked with him. He called me about 15 years ago. He wanted me to describe the incident. I said, geez, I, why?

He said, I'm having a retirement party. I want to tell people about it. I said, geez, get out of here. Use your own recollection. He asked me if I had any pictures. I said, no, I didn't take pictures of severed limbs and heads. Ridiculous. Major, I can't even think of his name. Wallace. Major Wallace. Southern guy.

Nice man. He became a lieutenant colonel, maybe a colonel. Okay, so anyway, that's an interesting You don't mind having that discussion? No. It's good to talk about that, I guess. Well, if I was on my desk then I might I taped it so I can hold it against you, you know. I recorded it. You did? Yeah.