Talking my wife into a skydive over Mt Cook

I had been trying to talk my wife into a skydive for years, and the answer was always no. What finally changed her mind was not me. It was a police officer we met near Franz Josef who told her, almost in passing, that it was a must-do and not as scary as it looks. That was the seed. I just watered it, gently, for the next few days.

By the time we reached the Mackenzie country she had said yes, and I was not going to give her a chance to un-say it. We turned up at the little airfield near Lake Pukaki, just the two of us, though the plane seats four, so a couple of strangers were assigned to share our flight up. We watched the group before us land back on the grass grinning. That helped.

Then the instructors came out to collect us, big units, one each. My wife's came last: a woman noticeably smaller than she is. I watched the doubt cross her face and thought, this is the moment it falls apart. It did not. She squared up, refused to even discuss backing out, and got on the plane.

We climbed, took some oxygen near the top, and started rolling out of the door one by one. It was terrifying, and the whole way down the only thing in my head was her. When I spotted her canopy open above me I felt relief before pride. She landed last and longest, her instructor floating her slowly around the valley with Mt Cook on the horizon, and she stepped off happier than I have ever seen her after anything.

It was my first jump since I was sixteen. Hers was her first ever. We watched the videos on a loop that night, neither of us quite believing it, and I realised the best part was not the freefall. It was watching someone I love decide she was braver than her fear.