Status Updates From The War That Saved My Life ...

"I was bad." I wondered if the presents were all for Jamie. Could any possibly be for me?/ "Not bad," Susan said. (...) "Not bad, Ada. Sad. Angry. Frightened. Not bad."/ Sad, angry, frightened were bad. It was not okay to be any of those. I couldn't say so, though, not on that gentle morning."

"Somehow Christmas was making me feel jumpy inside. All this talk about being together and being happy and celebrating-it felt threatening. Like I shouldn't be part of it. Like I wasn't allowed. And Susan wanted me to be happy, which was scarier still."

"I thought maybe that was why Mam hated me."/ miss Smith's hand touched my shoulder. When she spoke, her voice was uneven. "She doesn't-I'm sure it's not-" She stopped walking and turned to face me. "I don't know what to say," she said, afyer a pause. "I don't want to tell you a lie, and I don't know the truth."

"It was all soft, this place. Soft and good and frightening. At home I knew who I was." 💔

"Crutches were long pieces of wood you stuck under your armpits, so you could walk using the crutches and one good foot. Your bad foot, if you had one, didn't have to touch the ground at all. / Crutches didn't hurt. / The doctor said, "See? I knew she could smile," and Miss Smith shook her head and said, "I don't believe it."

"I started to walk across the room, but to my horror my foot gave way. I fell onto the wooden floor. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. / "Oh, for heaven's sake," the iron-faced woman said. She knelt down. I expected her to yell, or haul me to my feet, but instead-this was even worse than falling in the first place-she put her arms around me and lifted me off the floor. Carried me."

"We'd escaped. Mam, Hitler's bombs, my one-room prison. Everything. Crazy or not, I was free."
Mom being in the same sentence with Hitler breaks my heart 💔

Not sure I can easily handle how terrible the mother is