The Winter of 2008 was the worst. December 2nd was the day when everything changed; I was bullied for so long I was done. That next summer my aunt had taught me two things that i now keep very dear to me. My aunt was an avid archer and when she heard of what i was going through she had to do something about it, so she taught me archery. “hold the bow tight as you possibly can” she told me and me being too young to understand the value of the lesson asked her why and she answered “because if you have something you love you hold it tight and close to you and you never let it go.” So she taught me that if you pull back for long and hard enough your arrow will shoot farther than you ever thought it would. My aunt big on intrinsic values taught me all about getting through struggles just by teaching me how to pull back a bow she told me that the longer you struggle the more it becomes second nature to you and you learn to overcome that struggle.

That summer was a good one out of all of my summers it was where i learned to have peace with myself. Our camp was small and lonely so we decided to go there as a place of comfort and tranquility as my aunt had wanted to teach me. My aunt had always believed that nature was something that shouldn’t be tampered with, just as a human being shouldn’t tamper with themselves. She wanted to teach me to believe; but I taught myself something other than that. A few moments after we set up camp nature taught me a lesson I would never forget; How to survive with no help. My aunt had told me to look for some food and firewood so I put my archery skills to use, thats how I learned that i could hit my shots from 150yds. away but besides the point i had caught a small doe and dry wood and was trudging back towards camp when i remembered what my aunt had said “ hurry up now theres a bad storm coming in.” So I looked up and saw a grey, lifeless sky and I felt a sudden terror.

I dropped all the stuff I gathered and bolted through the forest; I was a mile away from camp so I knew I had to hurry but as I was running it started pouring rain and as a native of Las Vegas I knew that when there's rain there would be bad lightning so I run and run and I’m three quarters of the way there and I stumble over a log and sprain my ankle so now I’m on the floor during a storm. Now that I’m not able to walk because of the blinding pain I start to crawl but the worst thing happened; lightning struck a tree near me and a tree branch fell and I tried to move away but it caught me on the me on the neck and snapped my right collar-bone as well as impaling my right arm and at this point I know I’m in trouble so I remembering all the survivor skills I knew threw off the branch after cutting away the stick that was in me, trying not to move my neck I sit up and rip my shirt off, rip it into bandages and slowly pulled the jagged, rough stick out of me and bandaged my arm so then I think to myself "your almost out of this mess" and I make a makeshift splint for my leg and by this time the forest is soaked and it's still raining. I get up and start limping towards camp but suddenly am overcome by dizziness and blinding white lights I pass out....... Coming to a couple of hours later I find myself comfortable and covered in a blanket that smelled like chemicals and I look to the side and see my aunt sitting next to me holding my hand crying and I realized she found me, carried me to the nearest ranger station, and called 911 and that I was now lying in an ambulance on my way to the nearest hospital. As we get to the hospital I’m immediately rushed into emergency care and treated.

After I get fixed up the doctor asked a word with me I said alright and the doctor asked me what happened out there; I told him the whole story and him looking in awe says “ you are the smartest young man I have ever met and it’s a miracle that you're alive to tell this story.” I mumble a slurred thank you to him and later that day he released me. A couple of years later I got an A+ on a quiz and at this time I’m fourteen so I have a phone so I usually call my aunt for everything. So I wanted to let her know that I aced that quiz. So I get home, pull out my phone and dial her number I still remember it to this day and I sat and waited and finally someone picks up but it wasn't my aunt it was my cousin who which him and I had some great times together. So I ask him where my aunt Jeanine was and he burst into tears so I got scared and started shouting telling him to put her on the phone and finally he mustered up the courage to tell me that she was dead and I wouldn’t believe him until he told me that when they were coming back from california they got into a car accident and she died. so i fell to the floor crying my eyes out I hung up the phone on him and run to my room and didn’t come out for a week. Finally came the day when I went to her funeral and i saw her in the casket it didn’t even look like her so I walked away crying and I sat down until someone came and wiped the tears from my face and I looked up and saw my cousin and I gave him the biggest hug ever. A week later the reading of the will came and when it came I was there and in her will she left me something that I now will keep with me forever it was a necklace and on the necklace was a tiny bullet turned into a small urn and engraved on it was a message it said “ Never back down no matter what.”