I woke up to a voicemail message from my younger sister. She called at 3:30 a.m. while I was sleeping to leave me what sounded like a drunken tirade about wanting me to pick her and her son up "tomorrow" (today).
I've been unable to have any kind of relationship with her my entire adult life. She's been completely immature and made very bad, immoral decisions. Over the years, earlier on, I tried to give her help. I'd buy her clothes to work in, offer to buy groceries, and she even lived with me for a while. At the time she lived with me, she promised she wanted to earn her GED. I learned two weeks later that she had no real interest in continuing her education--and more than that, she was unable to keep a job.
Now, I know my sister suffered as a child. We grew up with very little, with a struggling single parent and this really affected her. Beyond this upbringing, she lacked the intelligence that I seemed to get (I don't mean to sound arrogant...I swear). She grew up feeling just like the poor outcast children that we were with no thoughts of how she could change her future for the better.
While I turned to academics and visions of a better future, she turned to the outcast crowd of high school dropouts, drugs, and a poor lifestyle.
And, now I feel like she's gotten to the point where she's either going to seek self-improvement or she will lose a second child (she's lost her first to the grandparent). I don't know what to do, or if there IS anything I should do. I'm financially incapable of helping her and I'm afraid to take her to people I believe can help her (friends of mine) because I'm afraid she will harm them by stealing or lying or worse. (I've seen her steal from our own mother, a blind, helpless woman.)
Most of all, I feel so badly for the child. I've seen him once...and it tears out my heart to realize his parents spend more time seeking cigarettes and booze than time with him. I can't even see him because it would cost me so much to do so--my sister would make visits with him come with some kind of condition to selfishly benefit her...and not the child.
I'm at a loss.
1 comment:
ah steph, i kinda sorta know how you feel with my clinically psychotic brother which led to the downfall of my first year of med school. we can only do so much but to put our own lives on hold is unfair, unjust, and just plain wrong. your situation makes it more difficult b/c there is a child involved and in that respect, i don't know what to tell you... but it's not like you have the means to take on a child and if she loses it to a grandparent, that may be the best for the kid (assuming the gps are descent people). it's hard. but we're only 26 and should enjoy life appropriately :) i understand you to be spending the holidays with your man... have a great time!!
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