It was getting dark. My younger cousin Louis was sitting ahead of me at the front of the canoe, his small frame barely filling the tiny seat. Our eyes were fixed on the shoreline and we were paddling hard to make it back to camp before it became too dark.

As I continued to paddle, Louis turned around to face me and asked, “Do you think we’ll make it back to camp soon?”

“Oh, absolutely.” I responded confidently. “Camp is by those two tall pines right?”

“Yeah.” Louis answered. “Our camp is by that second tree.”

“Awesome! We should be back in no time then."

With renewed vigor, the two of us continued to paddle as the sun set. The water grew still and the reflections of the shoreline grew faint in what remained of the evening light. Looking west, the sun seemed to have left the door to heaven open as it vanished behind the horizon. I noticed just how beautiful the sky can become, if only we take the time to notice it.

To nobody in particular I said, “Wow. That sky is breathtaking.”

“Yeah, it is.” Louis said lightly, almost afraid to break the silence. A few more moments pass before Louis again says, “Look at how different the east is from the west.”

“Hmmm” I said as I took notice of his observation. The western sky was vibrant with color while the eastern sky remained grey and cool. I thought that was interesting. I never had taken the time to realize how each side of the same sky can be so unalike. “It’s pretty cool isn’t it?” I finally said back to Louis.

“It really is.” Louis said back, smiling.

For the next few hundred paddles Louis and I talked and reminisced. I asked him about school, sports, how his summer has been. He asked me about my plans for graduation. However, it seemed like we mostly talked about random things. Eventually, both Louis and I were standing up in the canoe paddling like we were in one of those fancy Venetians gondolas.

As we gained speed I happened to lose my balance and nearly fell back into my seat. Louis turned around and laughed at me. It was one of those joyful, childish laughs and it made me smile. In fact, Louis thought it was so funny that he decided to rock the canoe some more. His weight shifted from side to side in a progressively accelerated manner. We were really rocking now.

Thankfully Louis stopped, and the canoe settled down.

“Did you like that, Branden?!” Louis yelled as he laughed.

“Uhmm, no, that was actually a little scary. Louis, we almost flipped!” I replied.

“You thought that was close to flipping? Well, watch this!” Louis got out of his seat and started towards the middle of the canoe. But before he could get there he tripped and fell flat on his face.

I was laughing now. Louis, thinking that he would stop me from laughing, settled in the middle of the canoe and began his methodical rocking. Slowly, the canoe succumbed to the laws of physics. We were rocking dramatically now. I was more scared than before, and before I could say something the canoe was almost vertical.

In one quick second the canoe decided it had enough of all this rocking. It allowed itself to break that important halfway mark separating the upright from those who have flipped. As the canoe tipped over I suddenly realized that Louis just flipped us. It might have been accidental, but he flipped our boat and dumped us into the lake!

First, I checked to see that Louis was alright. Next, we took a good moment to laugh.

“Well, Louis” I said “it looks like we have a little bit of a swim ahead of us!”

“Yeah we do!” Louis laughed back.

In a few minutes we both agreed that we really did want to go for a swim that night, and that the water wasn’t so cold when we got to paddle like this.

Smiling and shivering, Louis looked at me again, and asked “Do you think we’ll make to camp before it gets too dark?”

Smiling back, remembering not to take life too seriously, I replied “It’s that second tree right? Absolutely we will.”