We are blessed here at Skydive Vancouver Island. Everyday we get to share people’s experiences. It is often a first skydive or a birthday celebration, but this week it was a celebration of love from half way around the world.
Kelly and Nanet are from the Netherlands and have been visiting Canada for just a few days and have plans to see much of Western Canada over the next few weeks. We got an email from Kelly a few weeks before the trip asking for some assistance in organizing her planned proposal to her true love Nanet. We were thrilled to help and made a big sign that Nanet was suppose to see from the sky as she was under parachute. The plan is that Kelly was suppose to exit the plane first and then be on bent knee when Nanet landed.
Everyone at Skydive Vancouver Island was in on the plan and before the plane took off Kelly gave us the bag with the ring in it to set up at the landing area.
And then the plane took off.
Everything was fine at first. It seemed that the level of nerves and excitement were about normal for two people doing their first skydive. As we ascended towards our exit point of 10,000 feet above Qualicum Beach everyone was doing as was expected. I can tell you that I was a little extra excited knowing the secret that Kelly was going to propose to Nanet in just a few short minutes. The door opened at our predetermined exit altitude and Kelly looked out the door and something came over her. She couldn’t go out the door. Nerves had overcome her and she changed her mind about exiting the aircraft. Of course we can’t say to her “what about the sign and the ring and what do you want us to do?” so we proceeded as we normally would. Nanet still wanted to do the skydive, so we re-positioned ourselves in the airplane and Nanet and I went out the door leaving Kelly back in the plane with her tandem instructor.
I felt terrible for Kelly I could only imagine what she was thinking. She had been planning this grand proposal for weeks and now it looked like it was unraveling right before her eyes and I am sure she felt there was nothing she could do.
The skydive with Nanet went smoothly and the ground crew folded up the huge banner before anyone saw it and put the bag with the ring away. Nanet and I landed on the ground and rushed back to the hanger to wait for the plane to land with Kelly. As we arrived back at the hangar Nanet was talking about the plan for the rest of their trip and how it was going to include an exciting helicopter trip in the Rockies. Then we looked up and what we saw increased the level of excitement at the dropzone by 10 fold.
There was a pink parachute in the air and it undoubtedly had Kelly on it. Nanet jumped for joy that Kelly had made the plunge and she immediately decided that she wanted to make her own proposal to her true love Kelly. Nanet had also brought a ring from the Netherlands and was planning on proposing to Kelly on the helicopter trip, but now this seemed like a better time to do it.
We rushed back to the landing area where these two lovers rushed into each others arms and Nanet on bent knee asked Kelly for her hand in marriage. Tears flowed (mostly by me), kisses and warm embraces were exchanged (mostly by them) and warm smiles were seen everywhere (mostly by everyone)
Maybe the plan hadn’t worked as it was suppose to. Instead of Kelly on one knee, it was Nanet. I guess that just means that Love Wins one way or another and that’s the way it’s suppose to be.
