Auntie's Baby Is Growing Up

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My second niece is only nineteen years old and this weekend she is moving into her very own apartment. It is a very bitter/sweet situation for me. The rest of her siblings are planning to move to Atlanta with their parents. Keauna is a step-child and her step-father has always treated her like one. So I am glad that she is not going with them. She has her own car and her own job, but she never did graduate from High School and she is no where near ready to be on her own. She has already been raped once(they didn't tell me until much later)and she is very shy and naive. I wish that there was something that I could do. No matter how old they get, they are still my babies and I just couldn't bear it if someone hurt them. The neighborhood that she is moving to is not very safe. I believe that it is the only thing that she could afford. But she does not have anything but that job. She needs a career. I wish she had more time to get things right in her life. When I lived with them, I stayed on Keauna's case about going to school and graduating. When she would come home early and say that the school let out early, I would call the school. Most of the time she was lying. I dug up my diploma and showed it to her. I said promise me that you will get one of these. She promised that she would. Then she started calling me nosey. I said, I am not nosey, I just care so much about you. What I was saying at the time just seemed so foriegn to her. Like it was not possible for me to really care for her. She has had a hard time of it, since she was born. I am praying that things will get better for her soon.