August 4, 2014: This is the very last picture of my brother and best friend. He did this every year for the past few years. Little did he know that, at the time of this picture, he would not do it again. You can see that he is looking at another surf board behind him. They had been jumping from one to the other for about a hour. He called me and asked if I would go; I told him no. Now, little did I know that was going to be my last phone call with him. Not more than a hour went by when my sister called me. I didn’t want to talk to her so I had my wife answer. All I could hear was my sister crying. I thought, “here we go again.” My wife was telling her to calm down. She then asked, “who can’t breathe?” We never did know what she actually said. We just jumped in the car and went to the hospital. While driving, I called my dad and asked him if he knew what was going on. He informed me that my brother had drowned and was being transported to the hospital. They were performing CPR, last my dad knew. We got to the hospital, and they sat us in this tiny room. It was an ideal movie scene. After about 30 minutes, some lady came in and stated, “We did all we could, but Michael didn’t make it. I am sorry.” You can only imagine how the rest of the day turned out.
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