John P.'s Memoir

Beauty in the Bahamas

“John, come here now!”, my brother Mike yelled. “What is it?, I screamed. “Just hurry!”, he whined. I quickly swam over to him. As I swam to Mike I saw the dashing opposite colors of the underwater rainbow. The blues made the reds stand out and the reds made the yellows stand out as if a painter splattered colors all over the Caribbean reef creating a masterpiece. Mike’s evil smirk reminded me of one you’d see in a movie when someone’s devious plan is about to come into play. A chill ran through my bones as he muttered, “Look under the water but don’t be scared.” I looked under and saw two huge sharks swimming lazily at the bottom of the reef. Suddenly Dan, my other brother, laughed as he sneaked up on me and murmured, “They’re just nurse sharks, and they won’t hurt you.” Dan’s laugh right then and there is a memory I will always have of him. I was still scared to death. The chill entered my pruned body again but this time I felt my bones rushing as if I just scratched a whiteboard. My brain told me to get out of the shark infested waters. I decided to hightail it out of there.
I chose to hang out in the safe pool and relax on the comfy floats while I waited for my family to arrive from snorkeling. I looked forward to a delicious meal. As I laid there I hoped my mom would let me pick where we were going to dinner. If I picked I would choose to go to the Japanese place. We were lucky because all the restaurants were buffets. Then I sensed my family’s presence next to me. “Finally, what took you so long?” I barked. Mike replied, “We wanted to cool down real quick before we came in.” “Okay!” I interrupted as I climbed out of the pool. Just as I was about to ask what we were having for dinner, Dan beat me to it. My mom replied, “I’m in the mood for all kinds of food.” We eventually decided to eat at a great place called Arizonas.
After we changed into clean clothes, we finally arrived at the restaurant. My mouth shivered as I smelled the food such as sizzling steak and huge French fries. My stomach quivered from the lack of food but I knew once I ate I wouldn’t want to think about food for a long time. My mom told me to only take as much food as I could eat. But Dan grumbled, “Take whatever you want.” I proceeded to pile my plate with food. I barely could finish all of it. As we walked back to the hotel my mom was upset and I prepared for a big long talk. She exclaimed that if I attempted to take that much food again she would only let me take one French fry the next time we eat! The tone of my mom’s voice shook me as if a lightning bolt struck me. My eyes locked and I could only see forward. If someone was about to hit me, I wouldn’t know. My mom never spoke sternly to me like that. I guess I learned my lesson.
When we arrived back at the hotel, my parents went into their room and my brothers, my grandma and I went to our room. We were all chatting about our day when there was a knock on our door. My parents excitedly told us to hurry down to the beach. They exclaimed that the stars were out in the millions. We laid down on the beach lounge chairs and gazed up at the black velvet Caribbean sky. The tiny suns shone as pin pricks in the silky night sky. The Milky Way seemed as if a toddler reached up and finger painted a path for the stars to travel to different galaxies. I wondered if this was the same sky the pirates saw as they buried their booty on the island. As I laid there and thought about how each star might be somebody else’s sun, I felt as if I was a grain of sand on the beach, very, very, tiny.
For some reason the stars caused me to think of how sad I’ll be when my older brothers leave for college. I hoped that when they are on their own and look up at the star filled sky, they are also reminded of this wonderful family vacation.