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Today we mark the 35th year of our marriage. Isn't that amazing? I don't understand how that sounds like such a long time but doesn't feel like it.

It was going to be just an ordinary Monday, he was going back to work after our long weekend, S. and D. were going back to school and work and I was back to the household grind - ordinary - until we got the call last night.

We have that great invention of that last decade called Caller ID so when the phone rang at around 7pm last night we saw my father's name and assumed that the usual late coming birthday wish was going to be given. So when�B�came running with�the ringing phone and�a smile in his voice�as�he said excitedly, "it's your dad",� I wasn't the least bit apprehensive as I said "hello?". But I should have been, I wish I could have known what he was going to tell me�because I would have been able to handle it differently.

In the first couple seconds of hearing his�voice I didn't hear it, but then it was unavoidable, the sound that something was wrong�sounded like a loud siren and I couldn't say anything but "what's wrong?"

He tried to say something but his voice broke up, I thought in that second that he was going to tell�me that�his wife had died but as he fought to gain control he instead told me that�she's very ill and it won't be long.�

How do you know what is the right thing to�say? I thought I did, I like to think I�am a sensative person.�I knew he was in pain and that he was having a hard time telling me that his wife of 33 years�is too sick to get better. The words I spoke were comforting him, I could hear that in the strength of his voice, I was doing good, afterall I am sorry for her and him. But�when he told me about "the whole family coming together a couple weeks ago�at the hospital for her", I couldn't stop myself from asking him why I wasn't called then? He put it off on her (never taking responsibility for his own daughter!) saying that it was "her call". I should have accepted that, I should have left it at that but the lump in my thoat was enormous and the flood gate was pushing hard, the words just rushed out. I told him what he should have called, I should have been there,�that she always told me that I was her kid, she always called me her "daughter kid".

Divorce sucks! It clearly boiled down to Her Kids and His Kids. And in the end I find out that the two will never be equal. I am put on the outside by not being included in the group that was referred to as "the whole family".

I should have been called but they didn't and that's that. I am called now, now that she's "incoherent", that she won't even know I'm there, it is what it is. She officially became my stepmother after I'd been married for 2 years so our relationship was more of a friendship than a mother/daughter. I loved her, I saw how happy she made my father, I showed her my love and respect all through the years.�When we moved closer to them - to BE closer to them it didn't work out that way. She seemed to recent my ability to�drop in�on them. She took shots at me when I was at my most vulnerable ie: my mother's death, the birth of my forth child, etc. Our relationship changed as I never knew when she was going to go off on me. I tried to talk to my father in� hopes that he'd be able to get through to her and mend things for us but he in his usual style shrugged his shoulders and didn't see any responsibility for his daughter. He was fine with her and I drifting apart, fine with us not being at his holiday table and so the years went by and here we are - after all these years I'm just somebody that he thought he should call to tell them that she's coming home on Wednesday, hospice will be there and the end will follow soon.