If I could just get through....

I sent my 18 year old cousin to jail about 6 months ago for breaking into my new apt, stealing the keys to my car and attempting to steal the car. This is after months, no years of multiple incidents involving his theft and bad attitude. After him living with me, and trying to help him do right...I decided it was time for him to be responsible for his own actions. He came home yesterday morning. He hugged me and told me thank you. He seems to have learned some valuable things in the past 6 months. I know from experience it is easy to stay right when its all fresh in your mind. I have no doubt that if he wants to, he can learn from this and grow to be an amazing person. His sister though is still in the roughest patch. She is too young to get in trouble and go to real jail, not only that.. the things she does are less about stealing and breaking the law and more about drugs and disrespecting herself and others. 

While talking to her oldest brother today he said, "I just wish she would go back into the streets, I don't want her around me... I don't want to see her or be around her.. ever."  It reminded me of a time I said these very same words to my sister. In fact, "I don't want you to be a part of my life, I cannot be around you until you stop living like this." This was the last thing I ever got to say to my sister. 8 months later she was dead in the street. Three bullets later and a young pregnant woman, already a mother and newly wed was dead on 15th & Sheridan in Tacoma.

I thought I was doing the best thing for her by "not condoning" her lifestyle. It was the only way I could think of to protect myself from the things she had chosen. Hind sight is 20/20 and once she was gone, it was so easy to forgive all of her mistakes. Hell, I could all of a sudden even see why she lived the way she did. It was too late to help her, too late to understand her, too late to tell her I loved her ever again.

It is so hard to explain this concept to someone who hasn't ever experienced this. I know this girl (my cousin) is making terrible choices, I know she is disrespectful, rude, ghetto and mouthy. I know she has been given chance after chance to change... but just because she wants to change, doesn't mean she has the tools to change. You can't just bring a dog in off the street, give it a bath and then expect that it acts like a house-broken, well-trained, trick-performing dog. It might still bite you when you try to feed it. It might still shit on your newly mopped floor. It might make you so mad you want to throw it outside and not let it back in... but if all you were willing to do was bring it inside and bathe it before you toss it out again, then you're just as much to blame for its shitting on your newly mopped floor as it is.

I don't know the answer for getting through to this girl. God knows I have tried to be the cool cousin, the friend, the role model and the drill Sargent. What I do know is she has spent 17 years becoming who she is today and it isn't going to change just because she wants it to. She needs the tools. She needs people not telling her she isn't ever going to amount to anything, that she is worthless. Trust me... she already believes that, otherwise she wouldn't be disrespecting herself and hanging with kids who "accept her for who she is." because they don't CARE who she is. 

I understand you have to teach kids and teenagers responsibility. The operative word being "teach." Do people realize that is a VERB!!! It requires action. It requires lots of time and baby steps and patience.. it might even require getting bit by that damn dog a few times before he starts to trust you. It is sad there isn't an easy answer, and like I said... I don't even have kids so I really don't know where to go from here.  Trust me, I've smacked her myself.. and been close to doing it more often than I care to admit. I even thought it was the only answer for a while. I now realize it is too late for that.

The one thing I do know.. my sister was 100x worse than this little 17 year old girl, and she only made it to 21. I guess the only thing you can do is not give up. Don't take the easy way out. It isn't all her fault, she isn't an adult and therefore she isn't really totally responsible for her actions or herself. She is still a baby, don't turn your back on those you love , no matter how hard it is not too. You obviously are the bigger person...so be that. Don't let the last thing you say to someone be.. "I hope I never see you again." Cause you could come home one day to a message on the answering machine telling you, you got your wish. And I promise, your life will never be the same.