Head banger

It is debatable whether I should share this.

Tomorrow I will drive 500 miles for the umpteenth time to see my wife’s sister. This is a person who, in the 40 years I have known her, seems bent on self-destruction.

I will spare you the lurid details of her life, except to say that she has been in trouble with the law on more than one occasion, and is close to being jailed for the things she has done and continues to do.

It’s a sore point between my wife and I. Over the years, she has made attempts to rescue, save, or reform this person. All to no avail. We take food up to her, “lend” her money, take her out shopping, buy her cigarettes, you name it. Two years ago, she had a stroke, then booked her self out of the hospital. Since then, my wife has been beside herself trying to get social services to help her out. She can’t understand why they won’t put her sister into an assisted care facility.

As I see it, there are a number of reasons. She is a gangster, so to speak, and has been in that life for years. You don’t just get out of it that easily. She herself will not get involved with social services in case she gets found out. So she is laying low, keeping her contacts close, and living the life.

It seems that every time we go there she’s in a different “house”, and the characters she associates with make me very uncomfortable. We have even brought her into our home for a vacation and, more than once, my wife has broached the idea of having her live with us. At least I have had the guts to say a flat no to that one.

This has been a constant irritant to me, and it’s hard to know what to do. I do understand that this is my wife’s sister, and that she has tried many things to help her get out of the life she’s in. But it’s come to a point where something has to give.