Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I just finished a long phone conversation with my exson-in-law's mother. She lives back east, so we seldom see each other, but I adore her son, my granddaughter's father, and I've always appreciated the warmth and friendliness of his parents. His father has been gone many years but his mother is funny, wise and so interested in so much in the world. I wanted her to be assured that her son and granddaughter were doing well. But I also just like talking to her. She is trying to decide whether to sell her house and move, because the son she lives nearby is moving west to be by one of his sons, and she probably needs to relocate by one of her four sons. It involves a lot of decision making and since her sons are all in different areas of the country, two out west, one down south and one in a city that no one can afford to move to, it's quite a delima. She's lived in the house all her married life and raised four sons there, but last year four of her friends died, and she has no attachments left to enliven her life. I feel lucky my kids are all on the same coast, a little over an hour's flight away, except for my daughter and son-in-law, who live a mile away. It's them who will help us when we need it, and our relationship anchors me where I am, surrounded by friends. But I could be in my in-law's situation, and I feel it deeply. It's true old age is not for sissies.