Thank you, @wandrnrose7. Sorry for the confusion: my mom's cousin is my 81-yr-old penpal who went blind, and kept saying she was dying, but somehow she rallied around and is getting better. Just when I rejoiced that she returned to the land of the living, my sister had a heart attack at age 59 (caused by dialysis for kidney failure caused by chemo/radiation for leukemia)... I could go on and on with details and sad tales. The older we get, the more people we know who've been hospitalized or buried.