I piece I wrote in high school.. A few edits I’m sure it needs more but without the computer it’s a bit hard for me.. Let me know what you think? By the way this really happened to me lol..
Relaxing lying out in the sun, how good it feels to be in the beach. Oceans rolling in, making their crashing noise and smelling the salt in the breeze. People everywhere, laughing, sleeping and playing with their kids.
It’s fun for my birthday, always is and will be. Since I can’t come through out the year I make the visit with my family on this special day. “Hey kid, let’s go for a swim.” My middle sister told me.
“No.” I told her. I should have known that no was the wrong answer. She grabs my legs and starts to pull me toward the water while laughing. I just layed still letting her pull me a bit more smiling up to her because I’m to heavy for her to pull. Her tongue sticking out of her mouth getting exhausted.
“ok! I’ll go!” I cried out laughing. Yes, this is a good day.
I stand up and dusted myself off stalling for a few minutes. Then she takes my wrist and we started to walk for a bit, then the urgency to get to the water we began racing towards the waves, a silent challenge to who will get in first. Laughing at the top of our lung’s the ocean grew bigger with every step we took.
At first the water splashed on us and it’s cold making our bodies shiver, but we walked deeper into the ocean. Slowly we go warmer. Every few minutes we dared each other to go in deeper, foot by foot while holding our hands; looking at each other as if we had a secret that would get us in trouble that nobody new.
When we finally stopped the water was up to my neck and up to her chest. We stayed there; since I’m standing on the tips of my toes I bop up and down. With the momentum; smiling I push my sister below the water playfully. We played like that for a few minutes, when we finally realized that we were in the breaking point of the waves.
I felt shaky then, but since my older and braver sister is with me there’s nothing to be afraid of. This is but one more adventure in our lives. “Hey Sil? Race you back to Dino’s and lets splash water on her.” I said smiling already knowing that she would win but liking the idea of messing with our older sister. I looked at her and I know by her smile that the race was on.
“1,2..” But that’s were we stopped because a huge and I mean huge wave came crashing down. “Liza, Run!!” she yelled and pushed me towards the shore. I started running / swimming the best I could and knew by her hand behind my back she was close behind me, making me go faster. I know I wasn’t going to make it cause I saw a shadow over us, knowing that this was the wave that will be taking us under. Turning around I looked at the huge wave and a small gasp escaped my mouth. I saw my sister looking at the wave and when she turned to face me her eyes were wide with fear. She gave me a last push forward trying to save me from what was about to happen, arching her back and seeing her gasp air in I didn’t understand what was happening. Freezing I wasn’t able to get a breath in to hold it, facing the current I knew in my head I was dead. I tried to gasp as much air as I could and closed my eyes, the next thing a wave and part of my sisters’ body crashed into my chest. The little air I had escaped my mouth by the force of impact and the waved pulled me under rolling me in circles. I opened my eyes and the salty water stung my eyes. I couldn’t see where the top of the wave was or the ocean floor, all I could see was blurr and dark images floating in front of me. I somehow managed to arch my back and kick, lucky for me I managed to surfaced for a fraction of a second. Enough for me to gasp for air and then I was pulled under again.
My arms shot our when my body bumped into a pair of sticks that were not floating, not realizing they were actually my sisters legs. Somebody lifted me up and my sister was yelling at me to stand up. Not realizing I was close to shore away from the break of the waves I still struggled until she stood me upright herself. “Don’t ever hold me or anyone ever like that again. you could cause both of you to drown!!” I just stood there looking at her gasping for the precious air that my lungs needed.
“Lets go back to mom and dad.” We started walking towards the space my parents were but halfway there we were met by our dad yelling at us. He started lecturing us, and then when we got there my mom also started to lecture. My sister just asked us if we were ok, instead of answering her we just splashed water on her by shaking our bodies like dogs do.
For a few minutes we both were just sitting there thinking about what had happened. We both were holding our hands in a silence, giving each other a comfort and understanding of what we just went through. A couple minutes later I started to talk about what we just went through to no one in particular. My parents, especially my mother just shook her head in disbelief. My older sister just gave me a look of annoyance. My father faced me and it froze my words in an instant.
I asked Sil if she wanted to go for a swim, she said yes. Our dad just told us not to go into deep or else birthday or no we would pack up and leave. My whole day was good, except that moment of anguish, excitement and challenge I had with my sister. All this was, an adventure, like my mother says; when things go wrong just view it as an adventure in life.
My fathers thought on any type of situation is to have guts and go all the way, if you come out ‘alive” then be willingly to go back, don’t have fear but excitement.
Until Next Time,
LK
A Muslim Latina 