Tag: Mortality

Falling Face First Into Your Peace/Purpose

Falling Face First Into Your Peace/Purpose

October 13, 2021

August 28th, I strapped a well-made balloon and a man to my back and plunged from fifteen thousand feet in the air down to the ground. I willingly and soberly made this decision. I hear SZA singing, “I’m tumbling, spiraling, plummeting down to Earth.” I’m plummeting 120 miles per hour down to Earth. I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t even close my eyes. I don’t second guess my decision. I don’t imagine my parachute not opening. I don’t think about all that could possibly go wrong or that I may very will be living the last moments of my life, chasing a desire to feel alive. I am empowered.

50 Minutes Earlier

Jorge, my videographer, comes over to the table and introduces himself. We make small talk and he details his jumping experience and how the interviews will be conducted. He’s a relaxed spirit and made the process seem so smooth, almost as if he were discussing how to take a still photo.

10 Minutes Later

I’m given the how-to’s and what-to-do’s from my instructor. When skydiving for the first time, you complete a tandem jump with the instructor. My instructor, DC, has close to 9000 jumps logged and is the chief instructor at Skydive Atlanta. He’s tall, secure of himself, and confident in a manner you’d find reassuring of the decision you made to dive out of a perfectly good plane. He instructs me on getting into the harness and checks the straps and their connections. An altimeter is placed on my left wrist and wrapped around my index finger. I remember the important part. He says, “I’ll tap your left wrist and pull your right hand to your hip. You’ll reach for the golf ball. Once that altimeter gets between 6000 and 5500 feet, that’s when you give that golf ball a yank and save our lives.”

10 Minutes After That

The gears turn in my head. I’m not afraid to fall thousands of feet to the ground. It is in this moment that the confidence truly kicks in, and I see myself for the person I’ve worked so hard to become. I am free. I am blessed. I am unafraid. I am secure. I will never lose myself. I am not here to please others. My life is mine to enjoy. I am strong. I am resilient. I am qualified, capable, and prepared. I am more than a conqueror. My opinion of me is the one that carries the most weight.

What Feels Like 2 Minutes Later

The shuttle ride over to the landing strip, probably a seven-minute ride, seems like we’re moving in slow motion. One guy cracks cheesy knock knock jokes that I laugh at each time. The energy is vibrant and humor-filled. No impending gloom. No doubt or terror.

In the Air

The plane takes off. I check my altimeter. We’re climbing. 2000 feet. Jorge asks questions. I answer, wearing a smile throughout the process. 4000 feet. Other videographers interview their jumpers. 7000 feet. DC repeats a series of instructions he’s just given earlier. “Place your hands on your set of ‘oh shit straps’ incase you get scared.” 8000 feet. “Two minutes.” I take deep breaths. I can reach for a cloud. DC suggests that I grab a piece of one to keep as a souvenir. I chuckle again. 10000 feet. I notice the abundance of trees. 11000 feet. The solo jumpers are hyped. I don’t check my altimeter. The solo jumpers are out first. Six people back to back. Now I feel a little nervous. The camera is rolling. I smile through it all.

Go!

Jorge is out first. I slide to the edge. I bend my knees, arch my back, and duck my head. The tips of my toes are aligned with the black rubber edge of the door. The cool air rubs my face. DC says something I cannot hear. I grin and we flip out of the plane. We are falling. My heart stops for a moment. I have crossed the proverbial line in the sand. I feel my body relaxing. I don’t grind my teeth. I don’t fight the air. I do not panic. I am free falling and at peace. DC points to Jorge. I smile, wave my arms, and breathe.

Coming in Soft

I steer the parachute with my instructor. I pull the left handle and we spin wildly. I pull the other and we spin to the right. I pull both and we glide. We land easily and softly. I feel amazing. I’m invigorated. Ideas are forming. Inspiration is on the scene. I feel clear headed and in awe of my own power. At this moment, I hear Kanye say, “Unh uh, you can’t tell me nothing.” And he’s right. I’m walking on the moon. “Ms. Mac is in the building. Confidence on a hundred thousand trillion.”

The Art of Saying Goodbye

October 26, 2019

I restarted this post several times over the course of the last two months. Writing about life and the loss of it before seemed like an objective sense of emotions I needed to address, an insight I was compelled to provide. But the last two months have brought death closer to my door than warranted — from family to former coworkers to family members of dear friends. It’s been an overwhelming sense that I’ve reached the age where the empty chairs around the family table will consistently remain untouched. 

I remember being knee-high to a duck’s ass the first time I realized I was here for some reason. It was a moment that changed me. It might have been the surge of adrenaline coursing through my veins before I had the vocabulary to accurately describe what I felt. My five or six-year-old self sat on the fabric armrest of Granny’s 1985 Monte Carlo. It was the only way I could see over the dashboard and be in the know. We were leaving from visiting one of Granny’s former employers in the nursing home. It amazed me how my grandmother was much older than the frail woman but moved with the vigor of a woman half her age. 

No sooner than we neared the train tracks, a few men on bicycles road up, causing Granny to brake and let them pass. The arm of the train signal lowered on the car. The red lights flashed. The train whistled. The  car’s engine died. Granny panicked. She turned the key and the engine sputtered. I breathed heavily. She pleaded with the car. The train horn whistled loudly, approaching our stalled car. Granny began to pray and ask God to spare her only granddaughter, to start the car. And sure enough the car started. We moved just in time. 

I was crying. Granny was crying. “I hope you know that you have a purpose here and that life can be gone in the blink of an eye,” Granny wiped her face. She was silent, allowing her resolve to return. We drove home in silence, save her humming a spiritual tune. 

At that age, I didn’t fully understand that death was a permanent thing. Maybe it was the cartoons or the video games that made me think life could be reset. If you died it wasn’t forever. It also could’ve been because I loved the movie The Goonies and Goonies never say die. But it was at this age and being sidekick to a 76-year-old woman that I grew closely acquainted with the art of saying goodbye.

A few weeks later, Granny and I went to visit the same older woman again. But this time her room was empty, her belongings sorted into different piles. Two middle aged women discussed selling a little stool for a dollar. One of them paused in their sterile conversation, completely void of emotion, to acknowledge my grandmother and tell her that the woman had passed. No one called her. No one let her know that a visit wasn’t needed. That she didn’t have to wake up early that Saturday morning to prepare Chicken and Dumplings to bring. Neither of the two women, who Granny knew by name, who knew Granny came to visit took the time to call her.

With the passing of a loved one, I always feel like one of the many candles illuminating my life has been blown out. Sometimes it’s a surprise, an unexpected extinguish. Other times it’s a prolonged sense of watching their flame flicker until it illuminates no more.

The first emotion that arises is sadness. Its uncomfortable yet familiar embrace, envelopes me. Tears fall from my eyes. I taste their saltiness in the back of my throat. I instantly miss my lost person. I feel a hole where their candle once stood tall and shined brightly. Memories we shared flood my mind like pop-ups on a computer screen. Tears continue to slide down the curves of my face. I think about times shared, the nostalgia of watching their favorite films, eating their favorite meals, laughing at anecdotes and inside jokes. And while I am in these moments of the past that feel protected and locked away, the sadness takes over at the reality of not being able to create any new memories. That the best part of our relationship is behind us. An emptiness arises that I did not invest more time or make more of an effort to create more memories. That makes way for the next emotion — guilt.

In the particular instance of losing my cousin, I feel overwhelmed with guilt. I’d tell her that I’d come to visit and took time for granted. I could name a number of different reasons about why the trip never was planned, why the interest and intention were there but never follow through to make it happen, or even why I feel guilty for never fully investing the time to share flowers with her while she was here instead of exchanging pleasantries and laughs on Facebook. I feel convicted that I should have done more.