A soft place to land

Misty DeJournett is pictured with her skydiving instructor on her first time skydiving.

“Whatever you do, when you get to the edge of the plane, just don’t look down,” said Skydive instructor Alex Coker. As I inched toward the open door of the plane with this stranger strapped to my back, I could see only blue sky and puffy clouds at eye level.

Don’t look down, sheesh, of course that was literally the first thing I was going to do.

The air up there is cold, your ears pop, it becomes slightly hard to hear, as the plane ascends your guts will shake, all of them, or at least mine did.

I could feel my anxiety grow like I’d had an extra six shots of espresso with my morning pot of coffee.

You just have to let go, it is up to you the man in front to actually take the step to the edge and dive from the plane and truly it should be no other way!

The free fall at 157 mph stings your cheeks like a thousand tiny needles, you are almost positive you are going to have to unzip the suit you’re wearing and puke into it, but that view, it is sheer terror, but absolute joy!

During this specific time in my life, I had just lost someone I loved tragically and unexpectedly. My heart was broken, and if I am speaking honestly, so was my mind for a while. I had the overwhelming need to feel anything but the pain and sadness I had sunken into after my loss.

Whiskey and pizza had become temporary companions, but poor ones, so one day I decided it was time to try something different.

What was the craziest thing I could do, fairly safely and immediately?

I called the closest place I could find that would throw me out of an airplane. I never had a bucket list before this, but I decided this was the first thing I was marking off of the list I had yet to make.

Life is short. Make the list.

Now it must be said, I am not a fan of heights, so much so that I get intimidated by the City Museum in St. Louis and its child-friendly climbing attractions. So I did what any rational thinking, height-fearing person would do, I ordered the video package with my dive. (View the video here )

I made my reservation for a jump in June and prepared for my fateful fall. A freefall from 14,500 feet strapped to a stranger who would literally hold my life in his hands.

On June 21, 2020, I completed my first tandem skydive.

Alex Coker, skydive instructor, sniper, police officer and former U.S. Marshal, among other titles, quickly became the coolest person I had ever laid eyes upon and most importantly, he got us safely to the ground without incident, which is more than I can say for my second skydiving experience.

One year later almost to the day I decided it was time to try it again — I mean, it took almost that long for the adrenaline to wear off from the first jump. This time I let a friend take over the responsibility of making the reservation so we ended up at a different skydiving location. I told myself this was fine, how much different could it be, right?

I was oddly more nervous this time than I had been the first time, could it be that I had come back to my senses, maybe this was crazy, maybe I was tempting fate? I decided it would be wise to say a little prayer, it went something like this, “Dear lord, I don’t want to die, I am just feeling a bit crazy still so if you could just please see that I land softly or at least bounce, Amen.”

Moments later I felt the familiar sting of the wind in my face and the bugs in my teeth, skydive instructor number two pulls the chute, quickly yanking us upward, but this time it’s different, “Ugh Oh!” What, what was that, “Ugh oh” is not what you want to hear when you are roughly 10,000 feet in the air.

“We’re going to have to cut it loose,” said skydive instructor number two, who was not Alex Coker might I add. Ok so now I am pretty sure I am going to die, what was I thinking, wasn’t once enough!

Seconds later we are falling again at 157 mph but this time the ground appears much closer. He pulls the reserve chute, we are still falling relatively fast, but I am pretty sure at this point were going to survive.

As we skidded into the landing field I raised my feet as I was previously instructed, we bounced a couple times before coming to a complete halt. I had survived once more. The instructor added that he had only had to use the reserve twice in his 26 years of jumping. Some luck I have. Ok lord I hear you, thanks for allowing me to bounce!

The landing may not have been soft like I had asked, but I did bounce. Maybe in life that is all we can ask for, a reserve chute and the ability to bounce back after we fall.

Misty DeJournett is a staff writer at the Daily American Republic. She can be reached at mdejournett.dar@gmail.com.