I have three brothers, one of which lives "near" me and the other two in California and Hawaii.

I think different ages and stages in one's life make a difference. I know I was closer to the brother in Virginia for a few years but right now, I'm almost closer to the one in California. The one in Hawaii has separated himself from the rest of us kind of like your sister. My stepsister, who is even physically closer than my close brother, I use to see on some holidays but that has gone now too.

I think, like friendships, we have to work at family relationships when we're grown or they just kind of fall apart like long-distance friendships tend to do. I have really good friends from high school and even later, one of whom lives where my closer brother does but I never see them, rarely get emails or snail mails from them, etc. If we contact one another on Facebook or something there's always that, "We have to get together this year!" message around Christmas/New Years, etc.

I think it can be hard to manage one's own life and immediate contacts and juggling distant relatives; I have a 92 year old aunt I love dearly who is probably partially responsible for this particular bout of insomnia where I get up at 3:30 and am posting on PC here at 5:00? She called my cell phone about 4 weeks ago when I was in Florida on vacation, at a bar and had to go outside to answer but she could not hear me and we ended up hanging up but only after she was telling me she had just gotten out of the hospital. Have I called or written her back? No. I have difficulty doing phones, especially with her (she's mostly deaf but critical about how one speaks, it's the speaker's fault she can't hear :-) and just don't get around to writing her, though I was pretty good at that in the past. But what is there to say? My life isn't that exciting that there's much to talk about with many people but my friends here or my husband? I think everyone's life is pretty much like that so when we get long distance it places even more burdens on us for maintaining any sort of relationship.