Bungee jumping was a craze back in the early 90s. I didn’t get it. You head off to some light industrial site to be fitted with a body harness resembling a huge rubber band. Then, they stuff you in a window cleaner cage, the office tower type. A crane lifts you 150 feet off the ground. The cage door opens, and you’re expected to jump and plunge toward the ground, only to be yanked up again just before hitting the pavement. Where is the appeal in that? My 40th birthday was approaching and someone — I think it was my son, Lochlin, although, it might have been my daughter, Lesley — suggested I should mark the occasion with a bungee jump.
I said, “There’s no romance in bungee jumping. I’d go skydiving before I’d do that.”
Famous last words

This conversation took place in the spring, months before my birthday in October. Skydiving did sound romantic. I imaged myself as a WW2 double agent, a femme fatale, parachuting into France after midnight to aid the resistance. But the whole idea seemed terrifying, too. Still, I had oodles of time. My children would drop the subject if I didn’t mention it again. And if they pushed, “So, what will you do for your 40th?” I could downplay the occasion and tell them, “Forty is not such a milestone.” I would promise to do something spectacular for my 50th. All would be well.
It was a few days before my birthday that they sprang it on me.
There was a place in Abbotsford where you could go skydiving. They gave lessons too, and what’s more… the kids had already bought tickets.
Lesley and her boyfriend Bryce would join me for the experience. Lochlin wouldn’t. He’s so afraid of heights he gets nauseous driving over the Burrard Street bridge. But my friend Irv was coming, and he would do the jump too.
Me and my big mouth!
But, had I backed out at that point, I’d have looked like a total coward.
We arrived at the skydiving facility at 9 am on the morning of my birthday. Before our parachuting experience, scheduled for early afternoon, we had to complete a 4-hour course. The lessons consisted mostly of jumping off wooden picnic tables, and rolling into a somersault — landing practice. It all seemed fairly straightforward. I focussed on accomplishing the assigned tasks and didn’t let myself imagine what it would be like once we were up there in the sky.
Near the end of the class, they fitted us each with skydiving gear and told us to memorise the location of the emergency chute, in case our main chute didn’t open. Maybe not as romantic as a WW2 jump, but I took comfort in knowing that the parachute would open automatically. Tried not to consider what would happen if it didn’t. During this 4-hour tutorial, they also warned us repeatedly, “Once you’re up there and you’ve stepped out of the plane, you have to let go. We will not pull you back in. It’s too dangerous.”
Having completed our course, we were heading across the field toward the turboprop aircraft when one of the staff hollered, “Wait!” They’d forgotten to fuel up. I think we all tried to not think about that oversight too much as we waited for a mechanic to fill the tank with gas.
The airplane we climbed into had no passenger seats.
I was the first to enter. I would jump last. I stumped along the floor of the plane on my knees to the back. No headroom. You could not stand up. Bryce was right behind me, Lesley behind him. Irv would be the first to jump, so he was the last of us to get on the plane. Finally, we were all crammed in.
The instructor knelt at the front, next to the pilot, giving us last-minute instructions. “Here’s the strut, and here’s where you step out once we’re up there.” He pointed to a metal rod joining the body of the aircraft to the wings and then to a wooden peg, the width of a broom handle, that protruded a few inches below the door outside the plane.
“You step out onto the peg with your left leg, grab the strut of the plane with your left hand, and swing yourself around to face forward, holding the strut with both hands.” He paused and eyed us with a surly expression. “Remember, it’s windy up there. We’ll be going at speeds of over 140 knots. That’s almost 200 mph.”
Then the warning tone in his voice again. “Once you’re out there, you can’t come back in. I will push you off if I have to.”
Scary enough, but it wasn’t until we took off and the plane elevated to the point where the cows below were the size of chickens… it wasn’t until that moment, that the full terror of what we were doing, struck.
My daughter sat on her knees three feet in front of me. She was going to jump out of this plane. She wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for me. What if something happened? What if her chute didn’t open? What kind of mother was I to allow this? I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded so hard it drowned out the roar of the plane’s engine. If I’d have been able to find my voice, I would’ve screamed.
But some commotion was happening at the front. The instructor was getting Irv ready to go. He hoisted him up under the armpit. Then Irv’s one foot was out on the wooden peg and he’d grabbed hold of the strut. Now he was expected to kick with the other leg and let go of the strut at the same time so the wind would lift his chest. Next, he needed to arch his back and throw open his arms — like an eagle in flight or at least a pelican. He held on. I couldn’t see his face, but his body looked statue stiff. Moments passed. Finally, he let go and tumbled through the air like a rag doll, erratic, crazy, limbs everywhere. My limbs went rigid. It seemed like a half hour, but it was probably only a minute or two until his chute opened, and he jerked back and forth several times while dropping at a slower pace.
The instructor yelled at the rest of us, “Don’t do what he just did!”
Too soon, it was Lesley’s turn. I was still holding my breath and now my body began shaking so badly that the hardware on the harness of my skydiving costume rattled.
She was more cautious than Irv. She climbed out gingerly and held on for dear life. The instructor yelled, “Now!” But her hands stayed frozen to the strut of the plane. I watched, immobilized.
The instructor yelled again and this time he gave her a slap on the backside. She flew off from the plane, a little topsy, but not nearly as erratic as Irv’s departure had been.
My lungs were set to explode from holding in my breath. It seemed forever, but then Lesley’s parachute opened and she drifted down to land on the grass below.
The relief I experienced when I saw my daughter safely on the ground cannot be put into words. It would have been akin to what Dostoevsky, the Russian writer, must have felt when he received a stay of execution in December 1849, the morning before he was slated for death by a firing squad. Suddenly, everything was right with the world. Even the roar of the plane’s engine was pleasant. I wanted to kiss the instructor. I was alive and free and in love with the universe.
Bryce did his jump and landed safely. I hardly noticed. My emotional state had performed a giddy somersault. I now felt super cool, calm, and collected as I chicken walked on my knees to the open door of the plane. The instructor helped me out of the hatch. I planted my foot on the peg and grabbed the strut with both hands, and when he said, “Go,” I was ready. I flipped my right leg up and, at the same time, released my fingers from the strut. Then I was airborne, soaring alongside the plane, cutting through the 200 mph current of air. This is how Jonathan Livingston Seagull took to the skies – the wind lifting his wings, the pure, free joy of flight. Too soon, my parachute opened. It pulled me forward gently, and then yo-yo’d back and forth moving downward like a giant swing in the playground of the sky.
My landing was less fun and less elegant. The chute dragged me along, on my ass, across the bumpy ground until the canopy deflated and brought me to a stop.
They handed me a certificate that day for a perfect jump. They said they’d never given one out on a first try before. The sense of elation stuck with me for weeks — not the certificate, but the jump. I wanted to go back, to do it again, but I didn’t. I figured then, and still do now, that good fortune should not be taken lightly. Because, at day’s end, luck can be a spiteful instructor and it will do a backflip with a flick of your arm or a kick of your boot.