The morning of March 28, 1997 is the day I became an adult. I was standing in front of the Polish equivalent to the Department of Motor Vehicles feeling defeated. My mother had been killed in a horrific hit and run 14 hours earlier. In the midst of coming to terms with what happened, I remembered that I scheduled my driver’s license test for April 1st. That day would now be the day I was going to bury my mom. Cancellations were allowed up to two business days before the exam. Since it was the Friday before Easter and the following Monday was a holiday, I did not meet the requirement and would lose the money I paid. Whether it was the realization that, since my dad died when I was 3 years old, I no longer had any financial support. Or whether, it was the guilt I felt, I was adamant to save that exam. After all, I did not have a car and I was not going to get one at any point soon. Getting a license was just something people my age did. I begged for the expensive driving course and …show more content…
Not making ends meet as a clerk in Communist Poland, she used her talent and skills as a seamstress to supplement her income. Growing up I did not have much, but neither did the people around me. I was oblivious to how desperate our situation was. The fall of Communism changed everything. Suddenly, I started seeing the difference two incomes and college education made. With political freedom came sky high inflation and currency redenomination. The jarring contrast between what was available and what we could afford did not sit well with my teenage self. Even though, my mom had the foresight to sign me up for private English classes when I was 10, which in turn helped me attend the best high school in town, for the first time ever, I started feeling deprived. As a child who did not remember her dad, and who lost hearing in one ear at the age of 4, I had been living in a bubble of love and protection. My mother made sure that nothing changed