Penny slept in again this morning. She wasn't even fully awake when I went into her room, but I heard her cough at about 6:45, so I went in to get her. She laid still for a moment after I opened the door, then flopped over and sat up, cheerful as could be.

I'm sure it's a lot to ask, but I'd really like it if she could do that this weekend. I'm just sayin'.

When my dad and I were walking the other day, he told me he'd talked to my grandmother (his mother, my only living grandparent) last Sunday, as usual, and they'd had this conversation:

"Hey, Mom. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine."

Insert random chitchat here, and then, from Grandmom:

"And I'll be glad when these tests are done."

"Tests? What tests, Mom?"

Turns out that my grandmother, one day last week, had a dizzy spell and almost fell over, and when she went to the medical center downstairs... Well, to make a long story short, they think she might've had a very minor stroke at some point in the past.

Let's compare that to the beginning of the conversation, shall we? "Oh, I'm fine."

Apparently, my grandmother's definition of "fine" is "not dead yet." Which I knew already, really. She does this all the time. When Dad or my uncle call her on it, she says, "Well, I didn't want you kids to worry."

My father is sixty-two. And a grandfather himself. My uncle is sixty. But their mother doesn't tell them about her health until it's too late for them to help her, or go visit, because she doesn't want her "kids" to worry.

In the same conversation, she obliquely hinted at adding my uncle to her will as co-executor. (My dad's been sole executor of her will since my grandfather died, because until just this year, my uncle has lived overseas.)

Never mind that my uncle now lives closer to her than my dad by half a day's travel, and has financial acumen that my dad never will (no insult to my dad, mind you, but my uncle was a banker until he retired last year). Never mind that they're both in their 60s and mature individuals. Grandmom asked Dad about it - came at it sideways, in fact - before changing anything because Dad's the oldest, and she didn't want to hurt his feelings. Like they were kids.

"In another thirty years," I said as he rolled his eyes and laughed about it, "I'm going to remind you of this, Dad."

He sighed. "I hope I'm still around in thirty years to give you these kinds of problems."

I guess it's true. We're all doomed to turn into our parents.

--Liz