Nic's Story **Pt. 1** by longwinterdays

As we walked into the beautifully adorned church located in Oregon, a wave of childhood memories began to come rushing back to my mind, as though I would forget them if they didnt. Memories of crying and laughing, of arguing and making up, and of course, the unforgettable memories of being given the most amazing advice on things that were over-dramatic and, looking back, probably un-needed. But soon these memories got pushed aside as grief flooded my entire being like an unwanted tsunami.

I had been hoping to seen Nic again, even praying about it for a couple months, but this was NOT the way I had imagined it. I thought that it would be a wonderful reunion of laughter and many hours of catching up on the main highlights of our busy lives. I even realized that maybe we wouldn't have time to sit for hours, we were adults now and didn't have much time to just sit around like we did in the past. The thought of only being able to speak for a moment or two didnt even phase me, seeing as all I longed to do was see a dear friend that I hadnt talked to in a long while. But in all of my thinking, I never thought that this was what it would be like.

This is the summer that Nic and his best friend Timmy should have gotten all of us girls back for the prank that we pulled on them two years. The girls from our church had thought up an elaborate prank to top all pranks at the camp...and we succeeded. The boys always swore that they would get us back and the year they should have gotten us back was this one. But, even if Nic and Timmy had thought about getting us back this year, that plan would have failed miserably. Not ONE of us girls that had pulled the prank attended camp this year. I guess we all just got too busy with life. Oh, but if I could turn back the hands of time, I would do anything to go to camp to see and talk to Nic again; to communicate with him one last time.

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It was just two days before I went to Oregon, that I returned to Yakima to visit my family and friends...only to find out that one of my dearest childhood friends had drowned at camp.

I had been standing in between to rows of our multi-colored chairs at the front of the church, when a woman named Shelly grabbed my hand gently in hers and pulled me to her.

"You heard what happened to Nic, right?" Shelly asked with a strange look on her face.

"No, why?" I asked with a smile on my face. In my head I as thinking that he had tripped on a small rock and hurt his wrist or something else equally as nerdy. That is the way I pictured Nic, my nerdy, older brother who was always doing something clumsy.

"Adreanna, Nic died at camp. They think he hit his head on a rock and drowned."

Shelly looked at me with a seroiusness that I had never experienced before, but thinking that it was some kind of sick joke, I walked away and found a seat in the second row. She couldn't be telling the truth, Nic was only twenty-two and had just gotten married two years before. Thinking that Nic would pop out at any moment and yell, "Gottcha'!!!", I turned all my focus to God. I sang worship that day, Like I never had before. But something inside me snapped when we sang "I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever", and I just knew, deep down inside my heart that Nic was gone and he wasn't going to jump out at me as though this was some sick April Fool's prank. Burning tears began to roll down my cheeks as I looked towards Heaven and begged God to return the one person that I could go to with anything, the one person that I never though I would lose; The only Nic that I would EVER have.