So, my sister starts complaining about my father like he's a criminal. She got my aunt in on it too. Now my sister isn't talking to her either. Thank goodness. The last think I'd want would be her calling all the time. She's 81 and  lives about 2.5 hours away and my uncle has had the same fate as my mother so I think I'm safe for the time being. My sister is aging just the way my aunt did, only worse because she's not only self-rightous and snippy, but she's also hyper. My husband says that she's also becoming like his aunt, who is also estranged. I'll dish the dirt on everybody sooner or later. He says it's good because he knows the playbook and will be able to predict her moves.

So around Jan-Feb.,  while my sister is calling/e-mailing me with the worried daughter routine, I would call my father. She had suggested that we either chip in and hire a cleaning service or we take turns going there once a week. Fine. Only my father kept saying, "We're ok now. I'll manage for as long as I can." Hey, he's 81 but he drives just fine, still cuts the grass, and makes perfect sense. Oh sure, he can be curmudgeonly, but that's normal for his age. He's usually upbeat and active. Finally I was able to gently convince my sister without lighting her fuse, that my father was doing the best he could and that this situation was really hard on him. He's worked all his life, he's always been there for us, he's lucky to be alive (family history not good) and he doesn't deserve this lot in life. Predictably, my mother eventually deteriorated. She became incontinent. It became harder for him to get her up to clean her (the man is a saint) or to get her to bed, etc. He got more frustrated (in a sad, not angry way) with my mother's growing idiosyncracies. My sister had a fit that he said in the evil, admonishing tone that is her speaking voice, "She'll only eat twinkies" thus mocking what my father says. My husband's grandmother is in a nursing home. She only eats desserts. Hmm, *professional* care givers can't even get her to eat a good meal. Well, guess what? If we got her to eat perfectly nutritious meals, it wouldn't bring her mind back. May as well let her eat what she wants at this point. The doctor eventually said that too. Big surprise.

So I've got my sister calling and wailing away and my father painting a different picture, saying they're fine. Should I have gone over there more? Maybe. Am I a rat for not? I don't know. My sister lives further away than I do, but she can drive expressways, etc. with no problem at all. She has a son in college and a daugher who just finished h.s. She's independent really, she drives and everything. My sister works as a personal trainer (and she's just been made obsolete by the Wii. I know there are good ones and I know people like them, but I can't resist taking a shot.)  More about my sister's career/etc. later. I did help my father get secondary prescription insurance information from the computer. It literally took me three days. At one point no had been able to contact them for days by phone. My husband left work and went to check on them. The phone was out and they didn't know it. He went out and bought a new phone/answering machine, hooked it up, showed him how to use it, wouldn't take any money for the machine, helped him get his phone co. out there and made arrangements for us to call a neighbor if it ever happened again. That's gotta count for something.

Maybe I hadn't been there since Christmas, but at least on Christmas, I stayed for more than 30-45 min. Since my mother could no longer make dinner, I suggested that we take over, but my sister suggested that we order a pizza.  Christmas Eve, also my sister's b-day, was always a very very special night for us. Not this time. She glared, she paced, she was short and snippy and made everybody feel very uncomfortable. She kept raving, quite unbelievably if you ask me, about her church pageant. "Oh remember last year when little so- and so fell asleep". Remember her kids are far beyond pageant age. Come to think of it, when her kids were little, they either spent the night at my parents house or stayed until late in the evening.  This was obviously going to be my mother's last Christmas where she half knew who people were, but they had more important things to do. They decided that they did not have time to eat. As is tradition, we both brought Christmas cookies. Guess who we saw smuggle her tin back without offering it to my parents?  So they ran out of there like bats out of hell, leaving us awkwardly trying to keep the 'party' going. Our kids were starving. We, ever the miscreants, looked up her area churches online and darn if there was nothing resembling a pageant anywhere near that date and time. The best guess that the rest of us can come up with is that they were fighting. (Fighting? Wouldn't being married to that be absolute bliss? I'm confused.) And to all a good night.