My apologies, I didnt mean to suggest I was her only friend - there were people from the Quaker meeting who also visited and her son in law started to visit more regularly as well. My main point was that despite whatever disappointments and feelings of being let down by our mother, myself and my siblings can't conceive of leaving our mother alone in her latter years, especially since our dad passed away. So I found it really hard to witness how Kitty 's 3 offspring were not making much of an effort. I admired her for being quite stoical about it .