Parachute

Hello there. I am a Parachute, and my story begins with a dream. Long before I was real, people would look up at the sky and see fluffy white seeds from dandelion flowers dancing on the breeze. They watched feathers twirl and float gently down to the ground. They wished they could do that, too. To float instead of fall. A very smart artist and thinker named Leonardo da Vinci dreamed about me hundreds of years ago. He drew a picture of me, a big pyramid of cloth that he thought could help a person drift safely down from a great height. He imagined me catching the air like a big, soft kite. It was just an idea back then, a whisper on a piece of paper, but it was the first time someone really thought, “I can make floating possible.” That drawing was like a little seed, and I was the flower waiting to grow.

My most exciting day ever was on October 22nd, 1797. A brave man named André-Jacques Garnerin decided it was time for me to really fly. I was made of many pieces of white silk, all sewn together to make a giant circle. He folded me so carefully and tucked me into a basket. Then, we went up, up, up into the sky above a city called Paris, carried by a big, colorful hot air balloon. My heart, if I had one, would have been thumping. When we were super high, he looked down at the tiny people watching from below, took a deep breath, and cut the rope connecting us to the balloon. WHOOSH. For a scary second, we fell fast. But then, the air rushed under me and filled me up. I blossomed open like a giant umbrella in the sky. We stopped falling and started floating. We wobbled and swayed from side to side on our way down, like we were dancing in the air. The crowd below gasped and then cheered so loudly when our basket touched the ground safely. I did it. I had turned a scary fall into a gentle ride.

After that first big jump, I knew I had an important purpose. I grew up and got many important jobs. I became a hero for pilots flying in airplanes. If their plane had a problem, they could count on me to bring them safely back to earth. I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.” I also learned to help people by delivering food and supplies to towns that were hard to reach by car or boat. But my most fun job is the one I have today. I help people jump from planes just for fun. It’s called skydiving. They leap out into the big, blue sky, and I open up to give them a peaceful, soaring ride. I let them feel what it’s like to be a bird for a few minutes. I turned a dream about floating like a seed into a real adventure for everyone.