Don't give up on life

By André Völker

Awhile ago, I was at a beach area with my family during the summer. I really wanted to learn how to surf, and when I saw a store that rented surfboards I got excited.

At the first opportunity, I rented a board and walked toward the sea. It was a cloudy, windy day, and there was nobody on the beach. I didn't stop to think about the ocean conditions. As it turned out, the waves were taller than they'd seemed from the beach, and there was a very strong current.

I started surfing in the shallow waters. I picked it up pretty quickly, and started to go farther out, without paying attention to the current and the force of the waves. When the space between one wave and the next became smaller, I had to make a lot of effort just to keep swimming, because the water would pull me down. It was difficult to return to the surface to breathe.

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