An Unforgettable Summer

I remember this summer as if it were yesterday. I had been about eight years old. My parents took my siblings and I camping and fishing. I thought that was the stupidest vacation idea ever. I mean why couldn't we go to Disney World or Universal, but no we have to go fishing and camping. You know it actually turned out to be the best summer ever. I learned to fish, we went swimming and I learned a lot about nature. It was that summer that I had learned how to gut and cook fish. I remember my sister threw up. It was so funny. My dad and I spent so much time together. It was the best year of my life.

The day we left was so bittersweet, but my mom and dad promised we'd come back next year. I could hardly wait. Except that we never did go back. Early the next year our father became deathly ill. Our mother had known on the trip that summer, but they didn't want to worry us. He'd had cancer and he had been getting chemotherapy treatments, but they hadn't been working. Then it early April the doctors told us it was too late. Then we lost him. It was the first time in my life I had ever seen my mother cry. I remember when I went in to see him, before he died, he told me that it was okay to cry, that a true man wouldn't be afraid to shed his tears. I cried for him, for my mom and also for myself. It was the worst day of my life.

We never went back. My mother did marry later on. My stepfather is a very nice man and I think my father would be very proud. I later went to college and studied in nature. I finally came back today with my family. I have three wonder children and they love everything out here. They are all have the time of there lives. I plan to make this vacation unforgettable. That if anything unexpected were to happen to my wife or I my children would always remember this as the best summer ever. We I first stepped onto the pier I felt a soft breeze and knew that it were my father. I think that he was saying, finally you've come. I look at my children and I know that he is watching over them.

I will always remember that summer as being the best year of my life. I will always remember my father with love and respect for even though he was sick, he gave us all a very memorable summer. I won't remember him on his deathbed. I will remember him here laughing and just living.

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