I was at Albert Pike camping grounds during the 2010 Arkansas Floods. Though nowhere near the gravity or death toll of other natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, this occurrence was a watershed event for me regardless. Around twenty people (I haven't seen an exact number) were swept away that July morning, but not one Nelson out of the forty attending was lost. I heard a story about a woman who lost her three children and husband, her whole family, while all of the families that composed our group remained intact. This disparity has instilled in me a sort of survivor's remorse. The memories of this event haunt me yet it keeps me in line morally.

I don't like thinking about who was as a person during my preteen and teenage years. I know everyone is like this, but I feel especially embarrassed about who I was during those years. I had my positive traits and was likable enough, but I cringe to think about how close minded and vapid I used to be. After the incident, I had a firm grasp on the concept of "time is short" and began to take strides to better myself. It may sound cliché, but sometimes cliche is the only thing that works.

We were attending one of our Nelson family camp-outs. Essentially a Nelson family reunion, these camp-outs were some of the most fun I had ever had. Even if I wasn’t able to attend every one of them, I eagerly looked forward to them year after year and was thrilled to get to go in 2010 after a two-year hiatus. We camped for three days before it started to rain like it did every year. The last thing we did before it started raining heavily and we had to go to bed was listen to Run DMC while talking to our cousins in my mother's BMW. We had no clue that our lives were about to take the turn they did as every Nelson performed the ceremonial retreating to the tents.

I woke up to particularly heavy rain, and the tent was wobbling side to side. I laughed at how hard I thought the wind was blowing and the absurdity of this reliable aspect of our reunions. My brother and cousin who were in the tent also woke up, noticed the hubbub, and started kidding around and singing loudly with me. However, this stopped when the tent began to wobble violently and water began to fill our tent. We didn't get much of a chance to do anything about this before we began to float on our air mattresses and we were thrown over the log separating us and a hill that led to the Mississippi River which as evidently overflowing.

My cousin and I had just enough room to stand when our tent got caught by some small trees, but my brother had the misfortune of getting buried under the air mattresses when he went for his knife to cut us out of the tent. We were stuck like kittens in a bag. I remember looking at my young cousin telling me he didn't want to die. I remember hearing my brother crying and struggling for air. I remember saying to myself, "I cannot believe that I am about to drown to death." I remember wondering if my mom was still alive and, if she were, how crushed she and my father would be. Another cliché, but I realized it was "do or die." I was resigned to death, but, at this moment, I figured I would rather die semi-panicky than quietly dignified.

I ended up ripping the tent with my teeth. My brother says I plunged my arm down to where he was and pulled him up one-handed. For the life of me, I don't remember this. However, I have heard stories of adrenaline fueled strength and focus in moments like these and the whole experience was so surreal that it seems likely. He managed to pull himself out onto solid ground right before my cousin and I were swept away. He regrouped with my uncle and helped in the attempt to throw a life preserver to my mother who was trapped in her BMW.

I had to hold on to a tree and couldn't help my cousin. After he floated past me, I didn't see him for a couple of hours, but he told me that he managed to grab a fence and pull himself out. What happened next was like a version of hell. As I was held under water by the current several times, as it took my underwear and left me naked, as I ran screaming for my cousin, as I fell into another strong current and had to attach to a human chain, as I sat next to a praying family in a floating car, as I sat naked on a nearby hill for two hours with other stranded vestiges of various families, and, finally, as I crawled through poison sumac and mud to regroup with some up my aunts at the top of that hill, I kept promising to the universe that I would do something with my life and try to grow up to be more of a well-rounded, decent human than I had previously been. Only if my family were still alive. I didn't think I could go on if they were gone.

The short term effect that this had on me took the form of being unable to close my eyes at night. Long term, this traumatic event has been the source of catastrophic thinking and a general sense of dread in life. However, I think I will be just fine. Some called me a hero after this. I thank them kindly when I hear this, but I'm really just very glad that no one died in my family. I'm especially grateful for getting to go on in life.

This gratefulness was amplified when I read the comment section on a news article about the floods one day. I don't know if there is a God, but, if there was one, he wouldn't want anyone saying things like what one commentator said about southerners. It was something to the effect of "this is just God's way of ridding the world of some useless hicks," and, I mean, come on. I don't understand how someone calling us a bunch of useless southern hicks could be so ignorant themselves. I hope one day an intelligent northerner who was at Albert Pike can meet this gentleman, hear him say that, and then irrevocably put him in his place. Personally, I live my entire life with a renewed sense of self-awareness and try to live with grace, dignity, and self-respect. I do all this to prove people like him wrong.