This was supposed to be the best summer of Jordan Benoit's life.

The 14-year-old boy was looking forward to his freshman year at Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, but he was having fun spending the summer vacation with his sister, Cathy Balan, at her home in Aquebogue, his family said yesterday.

"I always loved being around him," said Balan, 29, a homemaker, as she sat with a numb expression in her mother's kitchen in Canarsie.

Jordan was found unconscious Thursday in a pool on Crystal Lane in Aquebogue and pronounced dead at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead later that day, police said.

Jordan, Balan and several other children and adults were at a get-together at a friend's home a few streets away, Balan said.

The drowning appears to be accidental, said Det. Robert K. Boden of the Riverhead Town Police.

"He was not a good swimmer or couldn't swim," Boden said. "He went to the bottom of the pool."

Before police arrived on Thursday, homeowner Theresa Curry dived into the 8-foot-deep end of the pool and moved Benoit to more shallow water, Boden said.

A nurse who was at the party helped administer CPR, Boden and police said, but to no avail.

Curry was not available for comment yesterday.

Jordan is the eighth person to drown in a pool or at the beach this summer on Long Island.

Yesterday, Jordan's family gathered at his home in Canarsie to share their grief over a life too short.

"That's my baby," Jordan's mother, Kettly Sanon, sobbed as she pointed to photos of a smiling Jordan taken on his first Christmas. "Jordan was sweet, handsome, funny."

Jordan was the youngest of three children, including brother Wildzfor Balan, 30, and his sister. Because he was so much younger than the rest of the family, he was doted upon and had a generous heart and charm, said his mother.

He wanted to be the world's first doctor-pro basketball player, Sanon said.

Every year for his birthday, he would ask for breakfast in bed, she said. And every year on the day after his birthday, he would try to cajole his mother into continuing to serve him breakfast in bed.

He would have turned 15 on Tuesday and had planned to celebrate in Coney Island.

"Everyone loved him," said Sanon, 43, a nurse's aide. She picked up a potted flower that Jordan gave her for Mother's Day and hugged it close.

Jordan's father, Joseph Benoit, 54, a barber from Brooklyn, sat mutely next to Sanon and covered his face. "I know I have lost my son," he said quietly.

A wake is scheduled for 4 to 9 p.m. Friday at Guarino Funeral Home at 9222 Flatlands Ave. The funeral will be 9:45 a.m. Saturday at St. Jerome Church on Newkirk and Nostrand avenues, where Jordan was an altar server. Burial will be at Cypress Hills Cemetery.