Skydiving!

Right around her 20th birthday Emily and a few of her VT friends made a last minute decision to go skydiving. Needless to say Emily's skydiving experience was.... different (as almost everything she did was!) After driving the hour and a half from Blacksburg to Jonesville, NC, Emily bravely volunteered to go first out of her group. Unfortunately the day didn't have the best weather, and the pilot ended up getting stuck in a storm pocket. The tiny plane she was in got knocked around a bit and Emily got motion sickness. The plane ended up having to detour from its "airport" (read: a grassy field) to a small nearby real airport. Well, Em being the trooper she was, volunteered to go up again as soon as they got back to the drop zone. Unfortunately, Em's stomach hadn't exactly settled since the last incident and again she got sick in-flight and couldn't jump. The afternoon progressed with all the other skydivers sucessfully jumping as the weather had settled down. After the last scheduled tandem-dive for the day landed the instructer walked back to the edge of the drop zone only to see Emily all suited up and ready for another try. She looked so determined to jump that day that he couldn't say no... and let her jump with him on the sunset run. He was just overwhelmed with her toughness and endurance that he was willing to take her during sunset even though they normally don't allow tandem 1st time jumpers during that time. Well regardless to say, Emily had a WONDERFUL and AMAZING jump and we still have the video to show for it. Emily was so proud of jumping and constantly told me and others that they have to experience the joy of freefall and parachuting to the ground from 2 miles up.

I was always kinda mad that Emily didn't inform me ahead of time that she was going. She had decided on a last minute basis (the same day) and later told me she was worried I'd be worried about her or possibly tell my parents and have them try to stop her. Yes, I was always protective of Emily, but I WOULD HAVE JUMPED WITH HER! I told her that afterwards - especially since the skydiving place was in NC. After watching her video and hearing how great her jump was (3rd time was the charm!) I decided I HAD to go myself. Since Em's passing, I have really tried to live in the moment and make the most of each day. When Em's little, Kate Woo, suggested a skydiving trip I was psyched!!! So this past weekend I joined Kate, Meghan, and Ashley for a trip to the very same skydiving place for all of our first jumps!

And yes, Emily was right - SKYDIVING IS AMAZING! Carolina Skydiving - the skydiving place - is full of incredible people. When we first got there and were filling out paperwork I asked a bunch of instructors that were standing around if they remembered a girl who came there about 2 years ago that got sick twice but finally jumped at the end of the day. They right away remembered her and the first thing out of their mouths were that she was the toughest and bravest skydiver they ever encountered and they loved her perserverance. One of the guys there, Richard, was her instructor and vividly remembered her jump there. It was hard for me to break it to them that she had recently passed away - they all felt horribly. But they gave us a wonderful day of skydiving and lots of fun and memories. We jumped on the day deemed "the height of fall color" in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

The nervous group PRE-JUMP!

Me getting in the PLANE!!

The group POST-SKYDIVING. Richard is in the orange shirt. The older man has jumped over 5,000 times!!!

My personal jump was incredible. Richard asked if I was getting my experience taped and was glad when I told him I was. He asked if he could jump with me since he had jumped with Emily and was touched by the experience. Kate Woo jumped first this time - and weather was NOT an issue this time around - skies were clear and wind was minimal. Ashley and Meghan followed, giving me the last jump for our group. Freefalling felt amazing and the parachute ride was breathtaking. Richard let me help steer the parachute and on one of the big twirls we made in the sky we both yelled out "EMILY!!!!!!!!" as a big hello and tribute to her! What a GREAT EXPERIENCE!

Thanks to all the PSP brothers for such a fun tailgate this weekend and my badass VT girls for organizing a wonderful trip. Em would be so proud.

-Kate