Skydiving!

Jon Takes Dad's Ashes Skydiving from Jon Carmichael on Vimeo.

Yesterday was an important and exciting day as I finally successfully got dad skydiving. Fortunately, the weather was perfect and the views of Oahu were breathtaking. Here's an HD video of the whole experience, including the moment on the way down when I spread his ashes:

Here's the background story on why this day was so important to me: Both my mom and dad had always wanted to go skydiving. I decided to surprise them and bought tickets for their 30th wedding anniversary, October 1, 2012. The day before our scheduled jump, the skydive company called me and said that we had to cancel our jump because the President was flying into town and no planes can be in the air. We were all so disappointed. 

Little did I know that five days later I would be meeting the President. His 20th wedding anniversary with Michelle was only 2 days after my parent's 30th so I thought it would be appropriate and fun to tell him about what had happened. I'm fairly confident that I'm the only person in the world who has started a conversation with the President of the United States by saying "I have a bone to pick with you..." I told him the story and he laughed, even apologizing and told me to tell me parents he was very sorry. The Secret Service and campaign staff all thought it was hilarious.  

We then tried TWO more times to get them up. The second time was postponed due to a scheduling conflict. The third time we got them all geared up and ready to go. They got in the plane and went all the way up to 14,000 feet. They were seconds away from finally jumping but then the pilot's radio had very unusual interference. They tried to fix it but failed. Without a radio, you cannot warn other aircraft in the area that there are skydivers jumping in that area and the jump was aborted.

Now here's the really strange part....





After they were back on the ground I noticed that the jumper that my dad was jumping with (Rick) was acting very strange. He was pacing back and forth in the office, talking to himself, "In 10 years... I've never jumped on this day... It will never happen.." It turns out that his son had died on that day 10 years ago. He could never get the courage to jump on that day. Finally this year, the 10th year, he decided to show up to work and do it. He explained to me that in 13 years and over 10,000+ jumps he has never heard a radio make noise like that, nor has this business ever had to cancel a jump because of it.

It wasn't until months later that we found out about my dad's heart condition. There is a good chance that if my dad would've jumped out of the plane that day, it could've ended badly. We had no idea at the time how fragile his heart was.

Although I'm still sad my dad didn't get to do what he's always wanted and jump out of an airplane, yesterday's jump gave me a lot of peace. We never know why certain things happen in our lives or why things don't go according to plan, but we have to trust that it's for a good reason that we just can't see yet.

I had such a good time skydiving with him and releasing his ashes as I was free falling. It was a day I will always cherish and I'm glad I did it in Hawaii, where he always wanted to go. He even got his own certificate! :) Love you dad...