Dear Diary

Late Summer, 1986

Dear Diary,

Guess what??  This weekend we went camping with some of the people from Daddy’s work.  It was at this cool lake where you can’t walk to your camp site, you have to ride in a boat.  We found a good spot where us older kids (’cause now I’m a FOURTH GRADER!) got to have our tent on a whole separate beach from the grown ups and little kids.

When we first got there, we had to jump over a little tiny stream to get to our beach.  But Daddy said they were releasing the dams and so the water kept coming up higher.  Me and some of the other kids built these little walls out of sand to try and keep the water from coming up to the grown up campsite.  But then the water came up anyways and we had to move all the stuff up higher from the water, and then it was this big long walk from the stuff to the water.  But Mommy said it was better than having to move the stuff a bunch of times.

One of the grown ups put a log over the stream so we could balance on it to get to the big kids’ beach.  It was so funny when Jennifer fell off the log!  But I’ve had gymnastics so I know how to walk on it without falling.  But then it wasn’t so funny when we were in the tent changing clothes, ’cause it was getting dark, and just when I was coming out I heard somebody scream.

I looked at the stream but I couldn’t see the log anymore, the water must have covered it.  And right there next to where it was supposed to be, Sabrina was going under the water.  She’s a little kid (I think she’s maybe two years old because I remember when she used to be nursing) and so she’s not supposed to come over to the big kid beach.  But she did anyway, maybe when nobody was looking, and she fell in the water and I saw her go under, and she didn’t come back up.

Later everybody said that there was lots of screaming, but I didn’t hear anything because the inside of my head went really quiet.  All of a sudden my legs were just moving so fast and I jumped in the water to the bottom and picked her right up.  I held on to her so tight and kicked my legs super hard, so we would be on top of the water instead of underneath it.  She put her arms around my neck and we just held on to each other and I kicked and kicked until a grown up got there to take Sabrina to the shore. 

And then I swam to the shore, too, but I was wearing my Jordache jeans (the ones my mom bought me, NEW! from KMart!) and man they were so heavy when they were wet and I was all of a sudden really, really tired.  The grown ups were all there and they were all telling me I was so brave and Sabrina’s daddy gave me a big hug and told me I was a hero.  But I told him I didn’t try to be a hero, my legs just went and went.  And Sabrina’s mommy told me she never saw anybody move so fast, ever, and that she was lucky that I didn’t get frozen like the grown ups, whatever that means, because I SURE WAS COLD.

Me and Sabrina sat by the fire, wrapped up in blankets while the grown ups moved the big kids’ tent over to the big beach.  I was watching Sabrina and she was so still and I never saw her be so quiet before, except when she was sleeping.

Her daddy kept thanking me and I even saw him cry, and I didn’t know that daddies cried.

~ Andrea