Personal Narrative: Camp Winaukee

It’s true, dads been fired. Into my second week in school, my mom picks me up from school. We pull into the driveway of our unfinished built house right across from the street from the school. Currently at this time we were living in a rental house on Cobbett’s Pond, which is to small for the five of us. This was at the moment, but now we have our new house which is built across the street from the high school. We already have enough stress on us. I do not want to go look at the house, and then my mom stops at the beginning of the drive way. She says “Zoë I have to tell you something”. I said “What?” She said dad got fired today. Everything starts rushing towards my mind, the feeling of rage, anger, sadness, and why?. Tears start welting out

of my eyes, and then I burst I starts balling and balling. My mom tries to comfort me. She said she was not going to tell us until December that would have been five moths from this moment. That would have not been a good idea. My mind is racing filling with questions, why did this happen? How could this be? What will I do this summer?
For the past 17 years my dad has worked at a summer camp called Camp Winaukee.

It’s a beautiful, all boys summer camp on Lake Winnipesaukee. Every summer of my life since I was born, I go there, and so does the rest of my family. It was like my second home. During the summer I know no different, and it is sort of like tradition to get in the car and go to Camp Winaukee for the entire summer. But for my dad, it is the opposite because he has to work all summer. He likes his job, but it has its ups and downs. He likes engaging with the teen boys and gets really into his job. My dad works on the island camp which is for teenage boys 13-15 years old. The mainland is for 7-12 year old boys. I spend most of my summer on the island campus. But last summer was the first summer my brother, sister, and I went to a sleep away camp for 2 weeks in Vermont. We did not want to go because we really wanted to be at Winuakee. But at Winaukee some of the other members of camp group did not want us around, and there had been some other problems that they had with my dad because of the way he did thing differently with running things. Abby and Bart who work with camp group and with my dad, and they would always in a way gang up on my dad because they took sides and kept secretes from my dad, and then later on they would always make big deals out of

everything.
My dad never thought he was going to get fired, but he did.

But for my mom it was the opposite. She always thought for the past few years the he was going to get fired, and she was right because he did. There are many other reasons but I am not going to go into great detail about it. Last summer was the first summer we all went away for a 2 week summer camp. We did not want to go because we wanted to be at Winaukee. But we were forced to go so we did. We had an ok time, but we were so excited to get back to camp and see all of our favorite councilors and the campers. We had a mediocre summer because they had people coming in and seeing how my dad was working, and I was annoyed and angry at Camp Group. I want to yell and scream at them but I knew I never would, I could never grow the guts to say anything. But it was better for me to keep my mouth shut. Then we went to my Grandmas for 2 weeks and that was the last 2 weeks of camp Winaukee. My sibling and I did not want to go, but we were forced to and we teared up a bit because we wanted to stay till the end of Winaukee. Little did we know that those final hours were our very last time at Winaukee, and if we every go back to visit it, it will never feel the same way it did

again.
Through this experience I have learned that we never know what is ahead of us. Life does not always goes as planned, and everything happens for a reason. Maybe it was for the better or maybe it was for worse. I will never know, and all that I do know is that this will always be apart of me for the rest of my life. I will never forget my summers at Winaukee and I will never forget the day that I found out dad had gotten fired. It changed my life forever.