My mother had a bucket list. It wasn't lengthy, but there were certain things that she wanted to accomplish during her lifetime. She wanted to learn a variety of languages and she did. She wanted to travel around the globe and she did. She wanted to excel at golf and well ....she gave it a good effort. In her 76th year, my mother decided to jump out of an airplane. In August of that year, she went skydiving with my then 18 year old son while her more cautious daughter videotaped the adventure from the ground.
Mom's next plan was to go up in a hot air balloon. However, shortly after her airplane experience, my mother was diagnosed with terminal second hand smoke lung cancer. Throughout her treatments and courageous battle to beat this horrific disease, mom talked about going up in a balloon "as soon as she grew stronger". She never did and almost a year to the day of when she jumped out of a plane, my mom died.
Following her funeral service, I handed each family member a helium balloon to which I had attached pictures of mom. Following a short prayer, we let the balloons go and gave mom her hot air balloon ride. The piece above is dedicated to my mom.............
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