Kidney Research UK

Marie Smith's Skydive experience - Sibson Airfield, Peterborough. Saturday 29th September 2007

5 year old Harmony was born with a genetic condition called MMA, which has been slowly destroying her kidney function. Harmony spent most of 2006 in and out of hospital and in June of that year suffered a stroke in the part of her brain that controls movement, added to all the other episodes of illnesses this decreased her kidney function further to a GFR of 14 and is approaching End Stage Renal Failure. A kidney transplant or dialysis won't cure her, but it will extend her life giving me as her mother and her family longer to love and enjoy being with her.

On Harmony’s behalf in honour of her bravery, the strength she shows in coming through every illness, her continued determination to walk again, never complaining and still having the ability to light up a room with a smile or make someone laugh I decided to sign up to skydive and raise funds for Kidney Research UK. I called my fundraising 'Smile for Harmony' and set up a JustGiving.com site.

It has always been a dream of mine to skydive but I never thought I would actually be there at Sibson Airfield, just about to experience it for real. I can't remember ever being so physically scared as when I boarded that plane and was horrified when I realised not only that we were going from 13,000ft, but how high that actually was. I sat silently on the plane replying to questions with one word answers. Despite my brain shouting "don't do it" and my body shaking in fear there was always only one way I was going and that was into the clouds so I sat there searching for positive thoughts, trying desperately to focus in order to find the bravery that would enable me to get to that door. I couldn't think of Harmony at this point, she's my strength but also my biggest weakness. When the time came I got to my feet to face the fate of what 12 weeks ago seemed like a good idea.

As I stood in the doorway, in the exit position as instructed, I glanced down out of the plane before putting my head back, then...... the most exhilarating thrill you can ever imagine: dropping through the sky at 140mph, before you know it we are surfing the air way up above the fluffy white clouds. By then it doesn't even feel like we were falling anymore but we were still dropping at an unimaginable speed. It was so very, very beautiful; for what seemed like minutes (it was probably a split second) everything stopped and I seemed to hear nothing. I was just mesmerised by the natural beauty of the environment around me, the white clouds that looked so soft you could reach out and hug them, the sun's rays cutting through the blue sky twinkling like diamonds, and for those few moments nothing seemed to matter. I felt a calmness, a feeling of absolute peace pass completely through me and a wonderful feeling of freedom and contentment

All of a sudden the air was crashing around my ears again and I'm sucking in the air in order to breathe. The cameraman was a couple of metres in front of me smiling and we were spinning round and flying like birds, it was absolutely amazing! Then I get the signal the canopy is going to be opened and we suddenly dropped at speed, your stomach somersaults and you spring back up in the sky. We floated around suspended by the canopy, by this point you could see the grass fields in the distance, the air was still and it was a tranquil descent.

My thoughts were now of my little girl, all the many things that together we have still to experience, the laughter, her endless smiles and how truly blessed I feel to have her.

From the calmness of the sky we are now heading down to the landing point at speed, I pull my knees as far up my chest as possible, I struggled, feeling my age all of a sudden, but I knew it was important, this was probably the only point realistically where you could hurt yourself, and I didn't want to break anything! At the last minute I stretched my legs out like a Russian gymnast (ok it sounded good!) and we landed safety back on terra firma, back to reality.

Would I do it again???? Damn right I would! I definitely will jump again, without a doubt. I've never felt so alive as when we fell from the plane into the clouds. The memory of my skydive, the help of work colleagues, friends and family in raising nearly £3,000 for Kidney Research, and having my daughter with me on that day will all stay with me forever. Thanks to modern technology so will the everlasting reminder of the DVD footage and stills taken in the sky!!!!

We are all guilty of taking life for granted or loosing sight of our ambitions, life really is too short, all I can say is not to forget to chase your dream.

What’s next? My head is spinning with thoughts of different adventures but one thing I won't be doing is forgetting to chasing my dreams in future, as the clock is ticking

Marie Smith

Harmony's Mumma X

We hold regular skydiving events up and down the country, so if you are interested taking part please click here for more information or contact our events team on 08456 121226 or by email on events@kidneyresearchuk.org.