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I don't know why anybody would want to hear about my siblings, Troy, but - since things are a little slow... I had 1 brother and 2 sisters. I was the spoiled baby of the family and a real brat, I'm told. In the small town where we grew up, my sisters were considered 2 of the prettiest girls in the black community. One was very vivacious and the other quite reserved. Between them they had only one child and it always saddened me that they had grown old alone, the victims of unhappy marriages. The younger was only 60 when she died in 1988, the other 77 when she passed in 2001. The childless one, who died at 77, had a small circle of friends, but she traveled a lot after she retired, just to have something to do. Because she lived in Chicago, and I didn't, we kept in touch mostly by phone since I was always so busy leading my own life, married, raising 5 kids and working full time . But she would always drive out on holidays to spend them with me and my family, - her demeanor always pleasant, - but wistful. When she died suddenly, I had to go try and gather up all of her papers, hoping to find an insurance policy to take care of her burial expenses. This was when I came across several old bank books. The first bank I went to, I was prepared to do a lot of explaining and present all kinds of proof and identification in order to see if there were any available funds. The bank officer was pulling my sister's records up on the computer all the time I was babbling away. Finally she wrote down a figure on a slip of paper and handed it to me, saying no explanations were necessary, that I was the sole beneficiary on the account. I was speechless when I looked down at the number she had written. $72, 000. It was the same at all of the other banks. $25, 000 here, $23,000 there, $6,000 in another one and $43,000 at the final one. All left for me, including $23,000 worth of savings bonds, a $10,000 CD and 2 small insurance policies found in her safety deposity box along with $500 in cash. I felt so ashamed and contrite that I had not reached out more to the big sister who was always so gentle and kind to me. All I could do was cry. To ease my guilt, I wrote the most fitting obituary I could compose, brought her a beautiful casket and a large headstone, and gave a lot of the money away because I didn't think I deserved it. Ironically 12 years later, most of it is gone, eaten up by financial set-backs. When my widowed brother who was also childless, was dying, he joked with me, saying he was sure glad that my parents had had me late in life or there wouldn't have been anyone around to write great obituaries for him and my sisters or "put us away" so well. When he passed at the age of 86 in 2008, I discovered that all the thousands I had given him from the money left me by our sister, had been deposited in a bank account, left untouched. The beneficiary? Me. During World War II, my brother served in the Navy, and was a member of an elite group who qualified to serve aboard the USS Mason, the only American ship with an all-black crew. These young seamen gave a good accounting of themselves, seeing action in the North Atlantic against the Germans. In 1995 the surving members were invited to Washington by President Clinton to belatedly receive recognition for their bravery and were presented with special medals by the Secretary of the Navy. When he died, the glowing obituary I wrote for my brother included all of this. I bought him a fine casket, but at his request, he was buried in a veterans cemetery, in the navy section, his marker the tradional head stone with just his name, rank and serial number. I miss my brother and sisters and think about them all the time, something I wish I'd done more of when they were alive. That's life.

Thanks a lot, Delano! I'm trying to make it to 80, guy, and you're telling me you don't see anything in my future.??? Oh well... You cast me as more charitable and compassionate than I am. I'm someone who would rather make a donation than volunteer to help with things. I'm lazy. Nor am I empathetic because I'm rather hyper-critical. I don't do any nice things behind the scenes, either. The only people I really help are my kids and grandkids and they hear about it very loudly when I do this. I do feel that I have an inner child who did stupid things when I was younger. My higher self is quite sensible and stern and then there's my playful seductive side. Also, my face is not symmetrical. One side looks different from the other. But then, I am ambi-dextrous.