the end begins; As high-society doyenne Brooke Astor unwittingly became the public face of elder abuse, Daphne Merkin confronted the challenges of caring for her own mother in her last days.(Column)

Byline: Daphne Merkin

I was, as fate would have it, worlds away from the

goings-on of upper-crust New York when I first heard the disturbing news about Brooke Astor. The contested specifics-whether the 104-year-old philanthropist and grand dame was or was not looked after in the regal style she was accustomed to (including a private chef and expensive face creams, fresh flowers and bonbons)-had gone far beyond the bounds of a family dispute and taken the very public form of a lawsuit brought by Astor's grandson against his own father, Astor's guardian. As a result, what might have been a matter of purely local intrigue had reached all the way to Israel, ...