Did you know that in the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the awimbawes aren’t just a repeated word, meaning nothing, and with no purpose but to sound cool? They’re a Swahili word meaning “you are the lion”, and it's true, that day is a lion in my jungle of a memory. 

   We were biking with my older brother Blake and sister Maura. The waves of Lake Huron ripple towards the shore as we made our way along the 8.2-mile bike path wrapping the island. The sun was hot, but the crisp breeze from the water and the sporadic shade from the trees made it perfect. I could hear the bike gears clicking as I glided down a hill, and the clip-clop of the horses that passed. Peace, everlasting peace covers us like a veil. As we biked we could see the rocky shore to our left, and sugar maples, beech, red oak, and hemlocks on our right. There’s no sound of cars or trucks since they’re banned on the island; bikes and horses are the only mode of transportation, the only way to get around on this paradise I can call home for just a few days. 

   But then, cutting through the peace is my brother softly humming the opening lyrics to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight: “In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight” comes across as soft as the breeze from the water. My sister and I shot each other an incredulous look, but then we joined in. We can’t sing any more than my brother, but we still do. The fact that my brother was singing took us by surprise most of all. He’s almost four years older than my sister and I, so any interaction is a miracle. 

   We start up again but a few verses in Blake and I start to tease Maura’s singing for how bad it is. So, we break up the parts. Blake sings, Maura is the awimbawes, and I am the animal noises. As we sing, people look at us strangely, like a bunch of teenagers aren’t allowed to have fun. Aren’t allowed to sing, Aren’t allowed to make each other laugh. But we don’t care. Blake is singing, laughing, and having fun with us. 

   About thirty minutes later we found a good spot to stop and built inukshuks, rock figures that resemble people. My brother chooses a big rock to build it on, and we gather rocks. He’s very critical about the ones we choose. They have to have an even weight on both sides, and they have to be smooth, and stackable. The chances we find a rock to match his descriptions are low, so our rocks are far from perfect. The hard part came and we all had to try and balance it all together. Every time it falls, we laugh, but keep trying. Finally, once we got our inukshuk to stand, we all smiled at our work, but looking back now, I smile more at the fact we were all together, laughing, teasing Maura, and having fun. 

   The memories we make are never something you plan out. They’re never something that you think you’ll remember years later. They’re small random moments that fill you up, things that make you smile, chuckle, or weep at what used to be.