Dear Prudence,
My half-sister is six years older than me. She never got over the fact that our dad married my mom and not hers. They had a fling and my half-sister was the result. Her mom was a huge racist and my half-sister took great delight in parroting ever single awful thing toward my mother and me. Dad tried his hardest, but my favorite memories of my childhood were when my half-sister left and we could have peace in the house again.
I think my parents were on the edge of divorce when my dad got very sick. My half-sister made it her mission to add as much misery to the situation as possible. She was 20 at the time. She would lie and say she wanted to see our dad and then flake on him. She would try and shake him down for money and then scream if she didn’t get anything. I remember her vividly starting fights with my mother.
We didn’t have a funeral and just scattered his ashes. I was so happy that my half-sister didn’t bother to show. I haven’t seen her in a decade but heard about her exploits from various relatives. Well, she has cancer and it doesn’t look good. She has reached out to various relatives saying that she wants to reconcile with me. I don’t want to. I have no positive feelings toward her at all. I am sorry that she is sick but it is too little and too late. My relatives keep trying to guilt me over my choice—saying our dad would have wanted this and she is my only sister. As far as I am concerned, she is just the person who broke my dad’s heart when he was dying. How do I get them to drop the subject short of dropping them?
—No Reunion