Dear diary, Today is March 8th 2002. My day started with a smack to the face, when my mom woke me up. "It's time to get ready for school!" She screeched. My mom smoked a lot when I came home from school I would open then back door and smoke would flow out, I gagged almost every time. I'd lived with this my entire life, 15 whole years. When I was younger I was taken to the doctor for respiratory problems, so that's why I have to use my inhaler everyday. Everyday was pretty much the same thing over and over again, well of course some days I get hit harder than others but other than that it's all the same to me. Of course my mom only hits me where nobody would notice like my head or my back or punch me in the stomach. Today was a little different than normal though. So back to today, after the smack to my face I ran to the bath room to take a shower before I left for school. I couldn't go anywhere without showering, I smelled to much like smoke. When I got to school I stood by my locker waiting for school to start. I had no friends, they all thought I smelled bad, occasionally people would ask me how many mirrors I had broken. I would just ignore every insult and harsh comment. I had no one to turn to, nothing to go home to, or look forward to.
It was about the middle of the school day, lunch time I usually ended up with the last seat available which always seemed to be by the "cool" kids. But today i got lucky there was an open seat where nobody else was sitting. I took the chance, just as I was about to take my first bite a kid walked by I looked up, the person just laughed in my face looked at his friends, they nodded at him. I was very confused at that moment, that was when he turned around and sneezed all over my tray. I immediately lost my appetite. I took my tray up to dump it, when I turned the corner my tray slipped out of my hands and smashed right into the kid. He got this disgusted look on his face, he started to raise his hand, he smacked me across the face in the same spot my mother had this morning. I didn't know what to do, all I knew was that I was in trouble when the principal turned the corner. The principal gave me a detention. All I could think about was, how was I going to explain this to my mom. You see my dad died a couple years back he developed a tumor in his brain and died when I was twelve. Ever science then life's been extra hard. My mom would make me come home right after school everyday and I'm not aloud to do sports. When I had my dad he would stand up for me. He knew smacking wasn't going to solve anything. My father also thought it would be good for me to do sports ant make friends.
When my hour of detention was up I walked the half a mile walk home. When I got there my mom was waiting at the door. She didn't care where I was she just knew I was late. She announced very loudly for me to turn around, she grabbed the beating board and beat me three times. She then shoved me up against the door and told me to go to the car. I ran for the car door before she smacked again. When she asked me to go to the car she either was going out to buy more cigarettes or she would dump me out some where and made me find my way home. It was usually about an hour or so away by foot. I could tell she was going to dump me somewhere. But this time I didn't go back, I found the nearest homeless shelter and stayed there a night. Good thing it was Friday so I wouldn't have school the next day.
Dear diary, today is March 10th 2002. I have been staying at a homeless shelter for two nights now. And luck for me there was a girl my age there, I finally got a friend. She was almost 16 years old. Her and her dad were evicted from their home from lack of payment. They only had the money that the girl had been saving. It wasn't much all they had was thirty two dollars. One day the man decided the only thing he could do with the money was buy food clothes or a lottery ticket. He knew the odds of winning we're very low. But if he won he could buy clothes and food with that money. The next day the man walked to the closest gas station and bought the ticket.
The days went on even faster now that I was away from home. I guess I have thought about my mom a little and what she must be thinking. I have been gone since Friday and it's now Monday morning. This was the first day I had ever missed school. It was nice, all that happened at school was bad and at home, but here was like a paradise for me. No smoke, no beatings, no bullies, and now I actually have my first friend. Life wasn't so bad after all. I began to get more and more excited for the winning lottery numbers to be announced. I would just sit sometimes and think of all the nice things that would happen to me.
Dear diary, today is Wednesday, March 13th. Today is the day they announce the winning numbers. My friend and I were so excited we couldn't wait to hear what they were. They announced them slowly, 25, 42, 56, 07, 91. We got our hopes to high I guess. "There Is always next time girls" we did get one number in the right order. But I guess the winning ticket wasn't till next time. Nobody had won the money therefore the amount raised it was now at 51,000,000 dollars
If they won they could buy a car, a house, clothes, food. And so much more nice stuff they had never had before. The next announcing day grew closer and closer. This time when I held the card it felt special. But then I thought about it there are so many people buying these tickets why would theirs be the winning ticket. My hopes died. There was no way them out of all people would get the money.
Today is the second announcing day. I'm so excited, because what if we got it. The thing is there is only one set of perfect numbers and there are millions of people buying the ticket. It's hardly possible for us to win. The lady at the desk turned the television on and changed to the station. "And here are todays winning numbers" said the announcer. He announced the numbers one by one very slowly. The numbers matched, all at the same time we all screamed. Everyone in the shelter just sat and stared at us. We ran there showed them out ticket a couple days later we received the money. Now the house hunt was on. The man and girl first walked to the local car dealer and bought a brand new car. We couldn't believe this was happening. But we were sure glad it was. We drove around town and found a nice house for a good price, we bought lots of really nice clothes, and good food. We were set the only thing wrong was where was I going to go my mom would be too mad to sign adoption papers and I can't legally just go live with them. So I decided that if I lived with them we could just pretend I was spending the night everyday.
Life is so much better than it was just a month ago. I now have nice clothes house and a friend, and a loving family. I still have respiratory problems from by moms smoking. I have to go to the doctor if they ask where my bruises came from I can just say I fell down some stairs. When I got to the doctor they told me I had been around too much second hand smoke and I find out that I have been diagnosed with lung cancer. Life got dreary again, but like I had my whole life I had to fight. I went through lost of kimo therapy. I began to lose my hair soon. It was getting hard to fight but I kept going and going.
Dear diary, today is June 12, 2004. This is the girl from before. My friend was diagnosed with cancer almost two tears ago we thought she was doing pretty good. When we went to visit her in the hospital the next day we saw her laying in her bed. I glanced at the moniker the line was strait. Not a single ripple, she was gone. She fought as hard as she could but it just wasn't quite hard enough. No matter your goal fight for it and never stop. THE END