January 2010: This morning I was musing about family relationships--specifically parents, grandparents and siblings. My parents were 40 when I was born and my grandparents and aunts were, accordingly, older as well. My sister was 10 years older too. So, as far as taking care of relatives went, that was something I never really did. My grandparents and mother all died by the time I was 16 and my dad was very robust up to his death at 87. He made his own decisions on his care together with my stepmother. I lived in another city, 8 hours' drive away. I was a single parent with responsibilities to a young daughter. I don't regret that I wasn't "there" for my Dad. We had a mutual understanding that I was to stand on my own two feet and so was he. We talked on the phone weekly and my daughter and I visited him every 6 weeks for long weekends. We created a lot of memories over those years, good ones. When he became too feeble for my stepmother to manage at home, he