I remember always watching the news, listening about how a father of 2 or more kids has died. They usually had a wife and a family that loved them. I just never thought that this would ever happen to me.

My life had always been pretty normal with my father, mother, little brother and big sister. We were a typical family you would find anywhere. We had just moved to a new city so my dad could be around his dad. He had needed to be around his dad. He was having problems with alcohol so I knew moving was the right thing to do.

We had been in this new city for about a year and a half. We knew the area pretty well by now. My dad loved to camp so every now and then we would take a week off and just head out of the city and go to a river and stay there and enjoy nature. One day, on Easter weekend, we decided to go to Medina Lake. We had just bought a new boat and my dad wanted to try it out.When we got there, everything was fine. The first day there just kind of flew by like the wind. We got there and eventually just fell asleep. The next day around, everyone woke up and got out of the tent. We dedcided that we didn't like where we were staying so we packed up and moved down so that we could be closer to the river. My mom made breakfast, we hung out for a while and just talked to each other. My dad had been having a few problems with the boat. It seemed like half the whole day had gone by by the time he fixed some of the problems and let us ride in the boat. He took my brother, my brother's friend and me for a little spin around the lake. My brother knew that we were having some problems with the boat so the whole time he had been praying for us all. I never really knew he prayed to God. Well, God sure answered his prayer becuase we almost crashed. My brother got scared and my dad wanted to keep us safe so he took us back to the camp site.

Later that night, it was around 10:00, my dad decided to put a spot-light on the boat. He wanted to test it out and see if it was still visible from beond the lake. He took off in the boat and we watched as the light got dimmer and dimmer. Sooner or later it disappeared. We thought my dad had just went off and found some new friends and was hanging out with them. So we went to sleep, not worrying about it.

The morning sky rose and my mom was wide awake and had a worried look on her face. I asked her what was wrong. No answer. I looked around in search of my dad. Not in the tent. Not in the car. I gave my my a funny look and you could see her eyes tearing up. She told me that my dad had not come back last night and that she staywd up almost all night waiting for him to show up. That's when I had the same worried look on my face. I was freaking out, but I didn't want to wake-up my sister or brother and worry them, too. We waited a about 2 hours until my mom called the police. She told them what had happened last night and the police said that they would report him missing if he didn't show up in the next 24-hours. We were going crazy at this point. Zack and Amber had finally woke up and had already known the situation. We decided to start packing and head out because we had no clue what was going to happen.

I remeber going up to my best friend's door and telling her mom that my dad was missing. She didn't believe me at first. Then she probably saw the seious look on my face. She left the house and came over to talk this over with my mom. I had to go to sleep because tomarrow I had school. I didn't really want to tell anyone what happened but I'm the kind of person that can't keep her problems bottled up inside. By the next 2 days, every 5th grader and their parents had known that my dad was missing. They tried to comfort me and tell me that everything was going to turn out ok. I hated hearing all that because I didn't need people to tell me that things were going to be ok, I knew they were.

I remember sitting on my couch with my mom and grandpa huddled around me. I knew soemthing was wrong. "They found your father...floating in the lake." These were the words my mom spoke. She tried making these words sound as unsad as she could make them. But there was no way you could sugar-coat these. I ran into my bedroom, locked the door, lied down on my bed and cried. I heard knocks on the door but ignored them as much as I could. I didn't want to talk to my mom or grandpa. I wanted to talk to my dad. I wanted to hear that they found him, and he is in the hospital or he is on his way hoem or at least that he was alive.

It was a Saturday so I got to sleep in. I slept as long as I could and then cried the rest. Sunday, the same thing. Monday came around but my mom didn't make us go to school. Not even on Tuesday. I don't think we went to school at all that week. I had hated school now. I didn't want to go back and tell everyone the horrible news. But the next week that I did go to school, everyone in my grade had already known because my councelor had gone around telling my classmates what had happened. I hated her for that. My classmates thought it would be nice if they made me a card. I still have the cards. I hate reading them. I don't like remebering what people thought about me and my situation.

About 2 weeks later was the funeral. It was held in El Paso, my home town. My mom told everyone not to wear black. She didn't want this seeming sadder than it already was. It was horrible to think that a death in the family is what got our entire family together.

This experience has taught me to love everyone as long as I am alive because you nevre know when your last day will be. Live your life to the fullest! I know that i will be with my dad in heaven one day. But for now, I am just a 13 year old girl trying to find her purpose in life.