The magic continues...........

Driving out of camp yesterday, I was apprehensive of returning to the "real world". It is always a surreal experience reentering regular life. Everything seems trivial, busy, and somewhat out of place.
I went to camp this year with the thought in my head that this would probably be my last year. On day one I wanted to get in my car and drive home. I just didn't think I could do it again.
Then, Sunday, the kids came. The familiar faces, the hugs, the community that instantly formed, captured my heart once again.
Two of the campers are pretty sick. This was quite apparent as soon as they stepped off the bus. Skin almost blue, lips the color of putty and a weakness in their bodies that made if hard for them to get around. My heart instantly broke. I also instantly recognized the courage these kids have. Suffering from this wretched disease known as Aids and still coming to camp where they know they will be safe and they will be loved. Words cannot explain what we all felt when we first saw these kids and the decline that had happened to them over the past year.
Camp was pretty dysfunctional this year and I saw allot of aspects of it that I did not like. It's hard to explain, so I won't bother. But the amazing moments overtook the dysfunctional ones.
I had 6 11-12 year old boys this year. This made my camp experience allot different than years past. I feel in love with each of them.
We played games, we swam, we paddle boated, we picked blackberries and made a pie, we skipped, danced, sang, laughed until we almost peed, sang along to Johny Cash in the arts and crafts room, confessed our camp crushes, dressed up, ate too much candy, got told hysterical bedtime stories each night in my cabin by one particularly imaginative 12 yr old, and shared another week with each other that no words can capture.
The last night of camp we do a candlelight circle and each person says one word that represents camp to them. As I stood next to two fellow counselors whom I have grown to love with all my heart, our arms tightly wrapped around each other, the tears flowing , I could not sum it up in one word, I needed two..... "Forever Friends".
To realize camp is better because the three of us are there, and our lives our better because we know each other, I knew I would be back.

One of my favorite camp memories was while I was out paddleboating with my boys. The young female lifeguard was wipping around us in her boat, and in her boat was the camper whose skin is almost blue. His body is ravaged by a horrid diesease. He had on a down coat even though it was 80 degrees, his body so frail, and on his face was the biggest smile I have ever seen.
She was giving him the gift of love, fun, acceptance and freedom because she knows nothing else.

My heart will continue to be filled with the memories of these kids and adults and a very magical place known as "Camp Starlight."

jb