Dear Grandma, I’m Sorry

I lied. Your mind wasn’t the best back then, but I went to visit you in the nursing home. You started giving me a lecture about the stupid things young people my age are doing. There were lots of kids you saw in the hospital who were injured doing crazy things like bungee jumping, skydiving, longboarding down steep hills with no helmet and no brakes. You made me promise I would never go skydiving or bungee jumping. I did. But I lied.

Initially, I had every intention of keeping my word to a 90-year-old woman who couldn’t hear me very well and didn’t remember my name. On several occasions I turned down opportunities to go skydiving because “I promised my dead grandma that I wouldn’t”.

But for some reason when my Bishop said he was getting a group together to go, I perked up at the opportunity. Money was always an issue before, but now that I have a real job, it’s not. Someone else was taking care of the planning process, which was another plus.

I went last Saturday, Grandma. I jumped out of a plane at 10,500 feet. I was in freefall for roughly 35 seconds. My instructor pulled the chute at about 5,000 feet. We glided in the rest of the way. I landed safe and sound. And I wasn’t even scared.

But don’t worry, Grandma. It’s not like I’m going to start doing this all the time. It was fun and all, but it was expensive. And I’ve gotten similar thrills on roller coasters before. Like the Raging Bull at 6 Flags Great America (IMHO quite possibly the greatest roller coaster ever built).

So I’ll try to be safe. But I’m sorry I lied. If it makes any difference, I think I’m probably one of the only grandchildren who read that book you put together for us. I read it twice. Thank you. I wish I would have been a little older and you would have been a little younger so we could have known each other better. I think we would have gotten along marvelously. Who knows, maybe I could have talked you into going skydiving.