Yesterday, as I was coming back from my early morning walk with the dog, I noticed a large, colorful hot air balloon drifting closer and closer to the air space above my house. This had never happened before. I often see the balloons in the distance because they take off at the Sonoma Airport, ten miles north and a bit west of where I live. They stick around that area for the most part.
But this one was definitely on a different trajectory. And it was very low. By the time I returned to my house, it was right overhead. My sister Kate was at my place, she had spent the night, so I grabbed Kate and made her come outside and see it. The big yellow balloon was low enough that we could see the fire in the middle of the opening and we could tell there were many people on board. We waved. We watched it for a few minutes, it hovered above us, then drifted off.
Our Mom had always wanted to take a hot air balloon ride. In fact, we had scheduled a ride for her about ten or fifteen years ago, in Napa. We took Mom out to dinner in Napa, spent the night at a motel and at 5:00 a.m. we called the balloon company to confirm whether or not the ride was taking place. Alas, they had to cancel that morning's trip because of low clouds. Mom was disappointed, but hey, weather does what it wants. There wasn't really another opportunity to do the balloon ride because we all lived in different places and coordinating such a thing took too much time and energy. Now I wish we had tried harder to make it happen.
But Kate and I both had the same idea at the same time: the hot air balloon we saw over my house was a little sign from Mom that she was happy and getting to do what she wanted, dead or not. We both laughed softly, shook our heads, and watched the balloon travel on. It was a nice moment.
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