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We would love to have any friends of Chris send us stories, funny, sad or whatever and We will start a page here. I will post them just as you write them with no editing at all. For now, Word format will be best as I am just feeling my way around this website and have little experience in doing much formatting. Email to bbobcam@yahoo.com  and I will post them as soon as humanly possible. Thank you for all your love and support of our family and for your love of our son. Please pray for him daily that he is safe and happy!!

Nick Jackson, one of Chris' closest friends wrote this story for his Composition Class at Regis recently and sent it to me last night. It is such a wonderfully written story and he captured Chris' personality so well, his bravado, his quiet confidence, all were detailed perfectly and I wanted to share it with you. I think you will enjoy it.

  NICKY J.

 “You’re kidding me, right?” I asked, gazing down the massive drop. Chris’s deep brown eyes surveyed the gap carefully, his leg rolling the weathered skateboard back and forth beneath him. Slowly, the solemn and concentrated look on his face turned into an all too familiar grin, radiating his tremendous confidence.

        For as long as I had known him, Chris had an unparalleled coolness to him, a kind of self-certainty that laid hidden beneath his humble exterior. In more ways than one, he was fearless. Chris was always the first to take the leap, knowing that he would regret it if he hadn’t. Everyday, his bright, exuberant smile stretched across his face, revealing one thing: Christopher Camarena had no regrets.

“Is he really doing what I think he’s doing?” my friend Joel asked me. I could only shake my head in disbelief. Chris pushed back from the ledge and deftly weaved back and forth on his skateboard, quietly humming to himself. Suddenly, he whirled around on his board and came to a stop. Running his massive hands through his wiry black hair, he stepped off of the skateboard and took a deep breath, pursing his lips and puffing out his cheeks as he exhaled. He then shoved the skateboard out in front of him and trotted up to it before hopping on, as he always did. With one push from his powerful leg, Chris was hurling towards the gap, determination burning in his eyes. All of the sudden, Chris pushed the tail of the board to the ground, screeching to a halt. We stared at him in bewilderment.

          “Will you guys go down there to catch me at the end of the landing?” he asked.

We had noticed how short and narrow the landing was, however, we had all failed to recognize the steel guardrail stationed at the end of it, leading to about a thirty foot drop. My buddies and I hurried down to the railing and stood in front of it, bracing ourselves to catch our friend before he could be thrown over it.

Once again, Chris was back on his skateboard, barreling down the smooth black asphalt towards the gap. As he came up to the edge, he popped off of the ground and lifted his legs towards his chest, the board steady underneath him as wind pulled through his white collared shirt. Unfortunately, as he came down to land, Chris leaned back and the board shot out from underneath him like a bullet straight into the guardrail. But Chris was not down for very long. He hopped up onto his feet, smiling and laughing while blood oozed down his elbow. “I have it this time,” he said.

One of my "sons" sent this story. Nick Jackson has been a member of this family since he met Chris at Rockhurst and will remain so. I hope he sends more in as he feels up to it. We know how hard it is to write these and hope all who do, understand how much it means to our family. Thanks bud....

“Life is too short, so love the one you’ve got”
Tears begin to well up in my eyes as I read these words, scrawled in
Chris’ handwriting on the side of a bottle that we had saved from our spring
break trip to Colorado.

I don’t know how to begin explaining everything that I want to say about him. To be completely honest, he was my hero. Even though I treated him like my little brother, I always looked up to him. He was everything I strived to be: confident, funny, extremely smooth, and one of the most caring people anyone could have ever met.

More than anything  through, he loved every single day of his life. Because of his
constantly upbeat attitude, his infectious smile, and his amazingly optimistic
outlook on life, Chris completely turned my life around and made me who I am
today.

I came to Rockhurst from Indian Hills Middle School looking for a fresh
start and a new life. I knew absolutely no one at the school and felt like a
scared little kid, lost in this huge and unfamiliar environment. Fortunately
for me, Chris came to my rescue. At the Blue/White mixer, Chris and I
were introduced to eachother. As I sat in the bleachers during the dance,
Chris  hopped on up the steps and sat right down next to me.

"Nice shoes, do you skate?" he asked as he inspected my brand new Globe
skate shoes.

"Yeah," I said to him, "You too?" Chris merely smiled and nodded.

Chris convinced me to come with him to the dance floor and immediately
introduced me to his friends. This was not only the start of what would
turn into an incredible friendship, but was also the new beginning that I
had longed for by coming to Rockhurst.

From that point on, I felt like I had finally found what I was looking
for in my life. For a long time, Chris, Bobby, and myself hung out, solely
the three of us. We would skate for hours at the Overland Park skatepark
and then hoof it on over to Bobby's house for movies, videogames, or
whatever had captured our interest at that particular time.

Then, one October, Chris told me that he had invited a close friend of his over to come skate with us.

"Oh yeah?" I said, "What's his name?"

"Nathan Nicolace," Chris said with the all too familiar smirk on his
face, "I think you will like him."

NATHAN

And he was right. Nathan, Chris, Bobby and myself were inseperable from
then on. I remember so clearly nights where the four of us would skate down
to the Amco station not far from Chris' house to get food and would then
proceed to invade the Camarena basement, inevitably waking up and
upsetting either Bob or Mary Kay.

Whether it was movie marathons, lightsaber fights, trampoline acrobatics, or one of the many unmentionables, we stuck together. Eventually, we came to call each other brother and, for the first time in my life, I completely understood what family meant.

Over the next four years, I got the privilege to grow up with these
four. The Camarena household was always the target of our debauchery and
mischief. There is no way for me to ever tell all of what happened in that house,
but one story seems to be a crowd favorite:

One night, Nathan, Bobby, and I were coming home from a party when we
randomly decided to stop off at Hy-Vee. As we roamed the isles, I heard
Bobby gasp.

  BOBBY

"Come here you guys," he said, "I have an idea." He was pointing at a
large bag of flour.

We came home with the flour and watched a movie, waiting for Chris to
go to bed. Finally, Chris fell asleep, snugly wedged into the corner by the
stairs in the basement. Bobby and I snuck over to get the flour and stood over
our sleeping friend, both giggling like little girls, as Nathan watched
from the  couch.

We both aimed and delivered, plastering the floor, walls, and Chris
with flour. Incredibly, however, Chris did not budge! We stared in
astonishment at the unmoving figure on the floor. Bobby and I looked at
eachother, grinned, and then went back for more flour.

"This time, we have to say 'Time for breakfast, b*tch!'" Bobby said. I
nodded in agreement.

We snuck up once more on our sleeping target. Bobby held up three
fingers and began the countdown. Bobby only got to "breakf..." in our battle
cry when Chris popped up and tackled me straight to the ground.
Immediately, Bobby ran off screaming "It wasn't me!"

Chris tore through the room, pushing Nathan into the couch before finally laying out in midair, taking Bobby down with this  lightning quick maneuver. We all stood up, looked at each other, and burst out laughing. Chris' whole right side was completely covered in the white powder! This quickly turned into a flour fight in the basement.

Suddenly, the door swung open, and Mrs. Camarena walked down the
stairs. Her sleepy eyes looked around the room, and suddenly, the realization of
what had happened dawned on her.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!" she yelled.

At that point she caught a glimpse of her son, covered from head to toe in flour, and started laughing as she was yelling! We were told that we were not allowed to sleep over at their house ever again, a rule that lasted about 24 hours as we spent the night at their house the next day.

However, with all the funny memories I have of Chris, I also have so
many that have changed me forever. Chris was always there with a helping
hand, much needed advice, or the huge bear hugs that he became famous for.
Whenever something was going wrong, Chris was always there to help out.
And in complete honesty, Chris ended up saving my life more than once
because of it.

Chris,
I hope you know how much you meant to me. You showed me what life
meant. I can never repay you for that, but I hope that I will make you proud in
my actions.

I love you as my family, my brother, and my friend and nothing will ever change that. Thank you for being you. I'll see you again someday, but until then, you will never leave my thoughts and my heart.

As Always,
Nicky J.

This story was sent to us by Brandson Khongmaly who is one of Chris' newer buddies. He and Chris spent alot of time driving around town, checking out cars, talking cars, anything cars! They became good friends quickly and Brandson has been a devoted friend since. Thank you bud for the great story!

 BRANDSON

I will always remember the first time that Chris and I met. I was out with my buddy Andrew in his 2001 PY "R" and I get a phone call from my brother saying for Andrew and I to come up to TBell (that’s what Chris called Taco Bell) off of 135th and Antioch. I was like why? He told me he just met up with a kid with a White Integra Type R. I was like what!?” Hell  yea, we'll be right up there.” As soon as we got there, I see Chris next to his car with a smile on his face like always. I walked up to him and introduced myself;

 “Hi, my name is Brandson.”

 “O hey dude, My name is Chris.”

 From there I knew that we were going to get along just fine. He and I talked for a while about his car and how old he and I were. I was surprised that Chris was the same age as me. We exchanged numbers and he gave me his AIM screen name. The next day I called Chris up to see what he was doing for the night. He told me that some of the guys are coming over to his house to watch some movies and chill. I told myself not to invite myself cause that would be kind of rude of me, but instead Chris asked me if I wanted to come over and spend the night. I was like sure I would like that. Chris asked where I lived and I told him that I lived on Olathe.

 He said “Oh, you live in OTOWN.”

“OTOWN?” I said.

” Yea, I call it OTOWN.” said Chris. So I gave him direction to my house and about 15 minutes later I see him pull up to my house with his beautiful White Integra Type R. As I got into the car, Chris said, “Wasup’ Bud!” That was the first time he has ever called me bud and I will never forget him saying that to me. From there on Chris and I became such good friends. I remember the time it was Chris, Nathan, and I, we were in the garage doing something to the "R" and as we were backing the "R" out, we hear this bang and we all looked at each other like "Oh Crap". We all jumped out and noticed that a chunk of the front lip was torn off. Chris looked at me and I looked at him on what to do. We tried to pull the front lip off with out letting Bob know (Cause we knew he would of gotten mad). Instead Mary Kay pulls up into the driver way and so we had no way out of this. So we were caught red handed.

On the way out, Chris kept on asking himself,” How could I of done that, I have pulled out of my garage like a thousand times.”

I just gave him a look like, I have no clue dude.

On Thanksgiving break I gave Chris a call to see what he was doing and he said he was with the guys and Julie over at Bobby's old house. I was like OK I might show up. Chris ended up not telling any of the guys that I was coming over cause he knew that I was going to come over and he wanted me to surprise them. I soon as I got there, I rang the doorbell and I see Chris opening the door with the biggest smile of his life(I guess he was really happy to see me) as soon as i walked into the door way. Chris decides to jump onto my back and give me the biggest bear hug ever and I was like “ hey man, your about to brake my back.” Later on that night Chris asked me if I wanted to stay the night at his house I was like I don't know, I will have to ask my dad. Before I called my dad, I told Chris that he had to talk to my dad so my dad would say yes. He was like ” NO DUDE! I'm scared of your dad.” I said no you aren't scared of my dad. He's like

“ I know I'm not, but I'm scared of him for this moment.” and him and I started to laugh. But he ended up talking to my dad for me and I got to spend the night.

Chris would do anything for me and I would of done the same no matter what came between us. He asked me if I could get him a job where I worked at and I said I would try my best. After begging my dad for two days he said FINE, thats the only person. So I called Chris up and told him to come up and he got the job. Working with Chris was so much fun. I don't think there wasn't a moment that him or I weren't together or having cardboard fights. I will always think of Chris no matter the time of day it is. I loved Chris so much as a brother and a best friend.

Brandson Keith Khongmaly 

This story is from Chris' cousin Alicia. She and Chris had a great relationship and loved each other very much. I am so glad she had the courage to write this piece for him.

  ALICIA

  KELLY