It was shortly before midnight, and Dr Patricia was getting ready for bed. The phone rang on the end of the line was a woman about to break a promise. The woman was her mother's neighbour. Flora Harris had made the neighbour swear she wouldn't tell her daughter she'd a heart attack and was in the hospital, for fear her daughter would worry. The neighbour wisely decided to disobey orders. Harris desperately wanted to get to the hospital immediately, but she couldn't. She lives in Washington, D.C, and her mother lives in California. For the past year a half, Harris has gone to Los Angeles every other month to take care of her mother. Flora Harris takes care of her husband, James, who's 91 and has Alzheimer's disease. They live in their own home, and a caregiver comes to help them a few hours a day. Harris is one of many Americans facing the heartache of how to take care of aging parents from afar. She's often worried, not to mention extremely busy with a demanding job, two teenage daughters and the frequent trips to California. In some ways, Harris is lucky. She has the resources to make the trips to Los Angeles. Plus, Harris is a doctor who treats the elderly. " But it's still tough," she said. " I can foresee what the next few years are going to look like, and it's not a pretty picture. My father's going to need diapers  . There will come a time when he won' t recognize me and he's easily excited. I worry he's going to be violent and hurt my mother." So what do you do when you live a continent away for your aging, sick parents? There are no magic answers. You can hire someone to help, but you can't _ it completely. Why was the woman thought to have broken a promise?
She failed to take care of Flora. She was not supposed to call Harris at midnight. She couldn't go to hospital on time. She told Harris about her mother's illness.