The spring of 1969 marked a "great awakening" in my life because my father, Grant (Edward) Taylor, suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak or walk and in a coma. It was during the almost fatal event of that spring that I realized myself more ambitious, considerate and even more respectful for my father. I heard that tragedy had a way of altering the lives of the people it touches, but I never realized the extent until my father's life was dimmed by a stroke. My father's encounter with death caused me to perceive things about mother that had been unimportant to me, and to take a longer look at myself and my very vague aspirations. Mother had experienced a childhood of devastation, filled with poverty and marked by child abuse and total educational neglect. During the stroke, she was confronted with Standard English terms she could not comprehend, with papers she could not read and with unimaginable chaos. Dad had been in a coma after traveling to downstate Jackson, Ms to the Veteran's Hospital. The Veteran hospital officials, in Memphis, Tn presented Mom with consent forms for Dad's medical treatment that only she could sign. I watched the humiliation flush across her face as she glanced at the bold print, then at me. Putting the consent papers on the table, she quickly slid them over to me. Realizing my mother did not understand the documents, hospital personnel left us alone so I could explain them; they returned later to see her actual signing of them. Eagerly, we watched her scribble her name across the dotted line; a name my sister, Ida, and I had tried endless times to teach her to write. Without the protective shield of houshold routine, she was temporarily stripped of all the attributes that had made her a loving wife and wonderful mother in my view. To the professionals, she was illiterate. As a results of my mother's inabilities, I realized I wanted more for myself and my posterity. I was sorry to find out the price of mom's simplicity but proud of my realizations. I knew that whatever I was becoming in this life, she was becoming that too; my accomplishments would be hers.