"Carrying Death" by Cassandra J

      It was a summer day, 5 years ago. Like every other summer with my family, most of it is
spent in the refreshing pool of my nina’s. My cousins who usually came over to swim were: Chris,
Andrew, Myself, Hannah, Michael, Lina, James, and (the youngest at the time) Aaron. It was made a priority for the Jimenez kids to know how to swim since we went so often, which all of us
had. All except little baby Aaron.
     Before we all went to the pool, my family fed us all and thus began the summer day that fell out of our normal routine. My two eldest cousins Andrew and Chris both use lifevests because they weren’t the greatest swimmers and they needed a little help to keep them up above the water.
Aaron used a lifevest simply because he didn’t know how to swim.
All of the cousins were swimming together playing games while the adults stayed inside. .
     After most of them went inside to rest after a couple hours of swimming, it was just Lina, James, and I left in the pool. Now, I don’t know what YOU did with your cousins in the pool but my

family really enjoyed pretending we were rulers of the sea. We usually switch up the roles of who
plays what and that day I wanted to be a good mermaid while my cousin Lina and James were my
rivals. As we played, unknowingly to anyone else, Hannah had taken off Aaron’s life vest since he had exited the pool. As she went back inside thinking that he would follow her in, Aaron wobbled his way to the unfenced pool deck and fell in not so far from where I was treading water.
     Unfortunately at this moment Lina, James, and myself were too focused on our game that no one had taken notice to Aaron struggling silently. As I was about to return a smart remark to my “rivals” I heard a soft gurgling noise. I turned my head and witnessed my baby cousin sinking underneath the water while facing upward. From this moment everything went slow to me. I cradled Aaron in my arms, ran out of the pool, and screamed “Aaron!” at the top of my lungs in order to get the attention of the adults. He was as light as a feather. As I made it to the backyard door, I began to kick it while continuously screaming. It felt like the parents were taking forever to get to us.
     I looked at the glass door and saw the clear reflection of the fear and desperation that took
over my body. I directed my vision down to my cousin and saw that his lips had a tint of blue in it
which horrified me to no end. Finally the adults had rushed to us and my Tio Hector (Aaron’s dad) had grabbed him from me and was screaming the name of his child. He put him down on

the concrete floor and stuck his finger down Aaron’s throat in order to see if he would have a gag reflex. As we all anticipated the sudden gasp and throwing up of water, we got nothing from him.
All of the family was shouting and crying not knowing what to do until my grandma had pushed through us. She dropped to the floor and began to do CPR on Aaron. We all watched and began to lose hope when a couple of tries had went by and he was still gone. My Tio Hector was crying and he had to walk away because he couldn’t process what was happening. The rest of us stayed and watched without blinking an eye, hoping for a sign of life. Suddenly Aaron begins to throw up water and starts to cry. My Tio Hector ran to Aaron and held his son like he never wanted to let him go. We were relieved and cried along with him since the feeling was so surreal.
     The ambulance came to pick Aaron up since they were called to make sure everything was alright. One of the men came to speak with me and told me that I had saved his life and if I wasn’t paying attention, Aaron would have been at the bottom of the pool at that moment. We all went to our homes after comforting each other. Some time around 8pm we get a knock on the door and my Tio Hector came with flowers and the gummy life savers. We both hugged and he still calls me lifesaver to this day.
     After this incident the family decided to teach Aaron how to swim, he was very afraid at first and would scream if his foot even touched the water. My nina also put a large fence around the pool in order to prevent anything like that again since we have three new baby cousins in the family. But now, Aaron is a confident swimmer and gets to enjoy the fun games we play during the summer.
     This event was extremely significant for my family because we now know to be very alert and aware of our surroundings. Today I still observe the places and people around me to get

a sense of security. I also learned to act fast, you can’t wait for anyone to act on something if it needs to get done.