Published in Montana Senior News, June/July, 2016, is the following story I wrote in February, 2015.

TODAY I FLY!

Today's the day.  I jump into my car.  I'm free!

Down alley, left to Main.  No cars.  I turn right, then right again at the blinking light, down the hill.  Slowly, I keep at 25 mph.  I want to fly!  No.  Not yet, not yet.

The sun, still low in the sky, hits me on the left.  Feels good.

I cross the river and enter the first curve.  Years back, the road twists and turns.  It would be so easy to miss a bend, fly across a fence, a pasture.  Now my path cuts through hillsides.

Without thinking, I push the radio "on" button.  A blast of static assails.  Oops.  I haven't yet crossed the Divide where Montana Public Radio kicks in.

The road gently inclines.  I consider my long, productive life, achievements undisputed.  A strict, stifled upbringing leads to a failed marriage but, out of that, comes a daughter with whom I now share my home.  The death of my second husband four years ago precipitates my move to Montana.  Adjustments haven't been easy.  Now at 74, I've questioned my worth many times.  But today?  Today I fly!

Slowly I reach the peak.  At the Divide, a railroad trestle spans the highest point in the mountains.  Over the edge, cliffs are steep, jagged.  Valleys below are rolling, uneven.  What if I gunned the motor, heading straight instead of curving with the road?  Just let myself go, relax into the air, gravity carrying me downward?  No, no.  Not here. Not yet.

Again I push the radio button.  It's MTPR's "Performance Today".  Strauss from Carnegie Hall flows around, through me, providing calm to taut nerves.  What will be my performance today?

Memories flood in.  A school teacher, a doctoral degree, a school principal.  How else to move up in the 1970's than to have more credentials than male counterparts?

A new love, a move to Florida, a consulting venture.  I love the work but not clawing to the top.  A better fit is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer with my husband in Bulgaria for two years after retirement.  Adjusting to newness of country, language, food, traditions, is a challenge we meet with flying colors.

I'm good at adjusting to change, overcoming barriers.  I've done it many times.  There's been so much to live for.

After relocation and my husband's death, I adapt.  The long-distance move to my daughter's is part of that flexibility.  But now, approaching old age, I must again create something new.

It's been difficult.  One step forward, two steps back.  Where am I now?

I have read statistics on suicides in the West, far higher than in the rest of the nation.  Montana is ranked third nationally.  Will I be considered one of those statistics?  No matter.  I know what I have to do.

Through prairie land, intermittent hills along stretches of ribbon highway, I spy clouds of rising smoke signaling my arrival into the city.  I make a right turn at the blinking light and another further on.  I begin my ascent up the long, steep rise.  Approaching the summit, I see on my left a sign for Swords Park, a walking path follows the top of the stone rims forming the city's northern boundary.  Located many feet below is the city center shaped by the rims into a bowl.

I often wonder what it would be like to walk this path.  Can I take that walk now?  No guard rails, no fences, nothing to impede a stumble and fall into the abyss.  No surrounding mantle of metal to keep a body from feeling the full impact of bones against rock.

A slight movement to the right of my windshield draws my attention -- an orange color, waving in the wind.  Oh, yes.  I pull right into the drive, pass several buildings before arriving at the door of the last one.  I climb from my car just as a tall, lanky fellow steps out, sees me and grins.

"Hey," he calls.  "Right on time.  Are you nervous?" he asks, heading my way.

"Are you kidding?!  I'm scared silly!  My whole life has passed before my eyes.  But, hey, this is my first tandem skydive.  Today I fly!"