12/19/1997

1997 was a hard year for my family.
I had sprained my ankle pretty bad in a dance class, and was on crutches for a few days. Some how this combined with my little brother's night terrors (he would be running around the cul de sac screaming at the top of his lungs), meant that my mom was abusing us.
We got kicked out of our apartment because of it. We had 30 days to find somewhere new to live. We didn't find a new home, not for about 6 months....
We stayed in hotels, and when we ran out of money we stayed with some friends.

December 19th, 1997
Day after my mom's birthday.
Like I said, we didn't have a lot of money. For breakfast we would go to Great Harvest to get a couple free slices of bread, and then my mom would drop us off at school.
As we pulled out of the parking lot to the light, facing the R.C. Willy's, I remember setting my tomagachi in the cup holder to respond to something my mom had said to me. We sat at the light and through the windshield I watched the lights switch from red to green. We started to turn left, then the windshield was completely cracked, and something smelled like it was burning.
It took me a second to realize we were moving in a different direction but by then the car had stopped. I tried to get out of the car, grabbed my toy out of the cup holder and pushed on my door. The door wouldn't open, this is when I started to panic. There was a speed limit sign stuck to my car door. I looked over at my little brother whose eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head, and I unbuckled him out of his seat belt. As I was reaching to try to open his door, some lady with short blonde hair, had run up to the car and yanked his door open. My brother and I climbed out of the car, and when I turned back to look, I finally saw my mother.
Hunched over the detonated airbag. Not completely passed out, but not all here. Maybe she sensed me but she turned to look at me and told me to get back in the car, confused as to why I was standing next to it. Her driver's side window had exploded onto her. She was bleeding everywhere, I couldn't tell how badly her face was messed up, just that half of it was completely red.
Someone had a small towel in their car and brought it over to my still confused mother, so she could hold it to her face until the paramedics arrived. I didn't get a chance to see my mom for another day. The lady who had helped us out of the car dragged us away so we "wouldn't have to watch" and told us how lucky we were that we didn't get hurt.
We sat in the grass and watched as the firefighters struggled to get our mom out of the car. They brought out a huge piece of machinery and started cutting the car. We panicked, a firefighter who was trying to take us to school told us that they couldn't get our mom out of the car, so they had to cut the car out of the way. The firefighter let us stay and watch as they pulled her out of the car, onto a stretcher and into the ambulance.
Then we got to ride in a firetruck the last few blocks to the school, so we could attend our class Christmas parties. The principal escorted us to class and gave us extra candy because he felt bad for us.

My mom was in the hospital for a couple of days. They had to get glass out of her eye, and put half of her nose back on her face, but she survived.

So at the end of 1997? No home, no car, no money, and new hospital bills. Worst year ever.