No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Two years ago today, my brother died suddenly from acute heroin intoxication.  I knew he was in trouble, but could not really help him as I was dealing with demons of my own.  It happened while he was in the downstairs flat of our house and Mom was upstairs and I was at work.  She heard screaming from the girls downstairs with my brother and went down to investigate only to find them trying to lift my brother's dead body from the bathtub.  She stood by when the paramedics unsuccessfully tried to bring him back.  We were devastated and she took to her bed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

My brother's sister-in-law, Ray,was very upset by this even though we hadn't seen her in sometime.  There she was grieving and lending support to our family even though she was one step away from being homeless.  After a while, Mom wanted to have someone in the downstairs flat and decided to let Ray live there rent free.  Things went okay for a while, but then her life style and choice of friends injected unwanted drama into our lives.  She also became a financial burden we could not afford.  Things, like jewelry, started coming up missing and we were always giving her 5 dollars here and 10 dollars there while she continued to use up our household resources without replenishing them.  We finally asked her to move out at the end of May, but here it is, late June, and she's still here.  I came home last night and my Bose player, a bunch of my CDs, my old cell phone and some laundry detergent were stolen from my room in the attic while my mother slept.  We know she did it, but can't prove it and she continues to lie and suggest that someone climbed up to the second flat and broke into my room!  She's an ungrateful thief and a liar and we will be evicting her soon.  You try and do something nice for someone and get punished because you chose to help someone unworthy of help.  A life lesson learned again.