So, I just found out that my stepmother is doing really poorly, through my sister.

For background : my mother died in 2000, when I was 15. My father, an old, (b1938) eccentric, sharp, independent and tough lawyer and lover of philosophy was bought to his knees with grief. I was a late addition to the family. My eldest sister was born in 1964,and the fifth in 1973. I was a freak birth in 1984.
As such, my siblings could comfort each other, but I was out of their world.
It was just me and dad.