When We Fall, It's to a Place of Grace

It was the day after Thanksgiving. The Stigler family of Memphis was taking a holiday break at Fall Creek Falls State Park. Susan Stigler was standing on the observation deck overlooking the falls, holding a video camera. She didn't want to miss a moment.

Her husband and two teenage sons were about to jump off a cliff. Susan wasn't worried. They'd done it before. They weren't really jumping. They were rappelling down the side using special ropes and devices.

Her eldest son, Jon, 17, went first. She watched him through the viewfinder as he slid smoothly down the rope 220 feet from the top of the cliff to the rocky floor below.

Jared, 15, was next. She kept the camera on him and she waited for him to leap. He seemed to be hung up for a second or two. Then he jumped and began to slide down the rope. It seemed to Susan that he was going awfully fast. It looked like he was dropping, not sliding 22 stories. She kept waiting for him to slow down. He never did. Jared knew he was dropping too fast. He reached behind him to grab the rope and slow his descent. But he wasn't wearing the right gloves. The rope burned his hand. Instinctively, he let go.

Then he hit the ground. He bounced and flipped over. Susan gasped. Jared wasn't moving. She thought he was gone. She thought she had just filmed his death. "Thank you, Lord, for these past 15 years with Jared," she said to herself. Then he moved.

The Stiglers weren't the only family at the falls that day. Connie Walker of Murfreesboro, Tenn., was there with her family and her sister's. They had been sitting at the bottom of the falls enjoying the view. But it was cold, and the adults were ready to go back up to the inn. The kids wanted to stay. Some people were getting ready to slide down the side of the cliff next to the falls. They stayed and watched one.

"Just one more," Connie's son said.

"One more," said Connie, who was past ready to go. She still wasn't feeling well, physically or otherwise. The car wreck she'd had months before had shaken the kids but had nearly broken her. She'd hurt her neck and back. She was having trouble with the physical aspects of her job. Her doctors kept telling her she was going to have to quit.

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