I Graduated May 30, 2008. It was the last day of the rest of my life. Not only was it for me it was for everyone else in my graduating class. My whole class was excited all week.

I am from Canton Texas. My graduating class was one hundred and nineteen. Everyone knew everyone. The majority of the people I went to school with I knew since I was four or five. Kids who grew up in big cities with large schools just don't understand. They don't grow up knowing everyone. A small town is more like a family. We fight, argue, but we eventually get over it like a family. It's a closeness most people don't understand.

May 29, 2008 was the day we had been looking forward to all year. It was the last official day we were all together. The whole senior class went to the city lake and barbequed, swam, and spent our last day together hanging out. The day was almost perfect. I spent the whole day hanging out by the lake, swimming, and talking to my buddies. We all backed our trucks by the lake, opened our doors turned the music on, and chilled... It was a great day. The funny thing is that I remember every detail of that day from waking up till I went to sleep that night even though some of the details might haunt for a long time.

At about three I headed home to help my dad do some dirt work on our driveway. A little while after four I got the worst phone call I have received in my life. My good friend called and said Daniels dead. I couldn't believe it. I thought he was screwing with me. Talk about tearing the walls down! I jumped in my truck and tore a** down the driveway as my as my mom is screaming at me to stop. This is when I literally feel like s***. Right before I left the lake my good friend Daniel asked me if I wanted to hang around and swim with him and some other buddies and stick around with my buddies and swim. Instead of staying I went home to help my dad.
Daniel Perez drowned four pm May 29, 2008. I won't go into detail about it because you truly don't want to hear about it. All I can say is that a few buddies are having a pretty bad time with what the experienced and what they went through.

The next night Daniels brothers accepted his diploma for him. It was horrible; the whole school was in tears including myself. It is such a sad thing because he was one of the best guys I ever knew with an extremely good family. On Saturday morning Daniel was buried. He was an extremely good friend of mine. The weekend before he died I was at his house with all our buddies for a barbecue. We spent the whole time talking about what we were going to do after graduation. The only possible conclusion I can think of is cherish every moment with all your friends because you never know when you might lose them. It's a horrible thing. I lost a great friend that I didn't even get to say goodbye too. The last thing I ever said to him was see you at the lake''.