Beverly Mylek and pal Brenda Sutton, both 78, decided it was time for them to finally tackle something they’ve wanted to do for decades: skydiving.
If you were thousands of feet in the air, about to hurl yourself out of a plane, you'd clutch the doorway just like Beverly Mylek did. She, along with pal Brenda Sutton, both 78, decided it was time for them to finally tackle something they’ve wanted to do for decades: skydiving.
“Well first of all, I had a suit on that was too tight, but I don't know. I think they had to pry my hands from the plane and cross my heart, and there we went,” Mylek told InsideEdition.com. “And I don’t remember breathing and it was — what an experience. I wouldn’t do it again."
In fact, she said the whole thing made her sick.
“Water was in my mouth, I was going to vomit. They were trying to show me how to land. And all I could think was something coming back up in my face, so. ... Well, Brenda did beautifully,” Mylek added.
Sutton saw the experience through a different lens. "I kept saying when it's going to be over it's going to be over soon and it wasn't. It kept going," she told InsideEdition.com.
The leap was made possible by Jump! The non-profit helps seniors check items off of their bucket lists, no matter what it is. The organization is funded by donors and foundations.
Webb Weiman was inspired to start Jump! after his mother’s death in 1988.
“Immediately after, my father was living in isolation in the privacy of his own room, if you could imagine that. So, I took the unconventional route and I knew I had to do something,” Weiman told InsideEdition.com.
“It was no life for anyone, let alone my father. And in his words, he had no reason to live. So I thought to myself, I need to do something to show him that there's life beyond the rocking chair.”
So he did what he says any good son would do.
"I stole my mother's phone book from my two sisters and I got my dad a date."
The slick move led to a second act for Weiman’s dad, and a 22-year marriage.
Weiman had no clue his mother’s passing would take him on such a journey.
“As I think back to where I was in my life taking my mother to the hospital and really never seeing life too far beyond that except taking care of her, to where I am now and making dreams come true and kind of carrying her memory and my father's memory, I would have never dreamed in a million years that this would be the next chapter in my life.”
In 2011, Weiman started Jump!
Since then, he has helped check off bucket list items for nearly 30 seniors.
They include everything from riding a purple Harley motorcycle, parasailing, race car driving or simply gliding around California on an Amtrak train.
“The joy that I see in their eyes, the passion I feel in their hearts is truly everything. It’s the moment they step out of a plane, a train, a race car, an 18-wheeler. It's knowing that this moment has forever changed their lives. How do I know that? It’s the phone calls. It’s the emails. It’s the handwritten letters that we receive as an organization from not only the participant but from their children and grandchildren as well,” Weiman said.
Even though Mylek and Sutton say they won’t do it again, they say they’re glad they got to seize the moment.
“Yeah, you're never too old. You should have fun right up to the day you draw your last breath,” Mylek said.
“Even if it's something you're not comfortable with you should try it anyway. Just try, you never know, you might pick up a new hobby,” Sutton added.
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