Never Shall I Forget that moment, the first time I feared water, the time were water killed my love for it, the time I wanted to give up.

Never shall I forget the furious winds that blew.
Never shall I forget the way the boat tilted from side to side uncontrollably, and how the waves made swimming towards the shore, dragging a tube, a living hell.

Never shall I forget the feeling of the rope tying itself around my legs.

Never shall I forget how the waves threw themselves over me and forced me towards the rocks and broken wooden beams; the feeling of death rising through my body.

Never shall I forget how my breath was forced back into my lungs by water and the rope getting closer to my waist.

Never shall I forget the way the grey clouds swallowed the sky and stole my visions of the Sun.

Never shall I forget the miracle that brought me to shore.
And never shall I forget the way my body caved into itself and collapsed into the sand with the feeling of relief slowly making its way into my reality.

Never.

Never shall I forget. This poem was inspired by the only time in my life I was afraid of water. As I read through  the original version by Elie Wiesel I tried to find an experience in my life were I questioned something that brought me comfort; and it was this experience in Kelowna, BC, in the summer of 2019. It all started the second day of our family vacation with my uncle and his family in Kelowna. We had decided to rent a speed boat and go tubing on the lake in front of our cottage that sat on the beach. After a long drive back to our part of the lake the wind began to blow harder and create waves that reached three feet. the dock where we were supposed to get the rest of the family had been blown away by the wind a couple of weeks ago so we decided that I would take the tube to the shore, put the kids in it and drag them back to the boat. However, as a jumped into the water with the tube the wind blew even faster, and the tube complied to where the water took it; making a living hell to drag it to shore. The sky grew darker by the second, making my viability much more difficult under water. After taking a beating by the waves, I had finally made it to shore with one last breath in my lungs causing my body to collapse on the spot. I couldn’t believe what I had just gone through; the pain and suffering that something I loved inflicted on me. And never shall I forget how close I was to crashing into the wooden beams and rocks; so close to death, yet, the feeling of survival was exhausting enough to take me away from this world for a moment.

Never Shall I Forget.