I Faced My Fear And Raised £1,600!
Rupal was inspired by her mother’s courage to always challenge herself
Heights are something that many people are not comfortable with,” says Rupal Gosai. “When I was young, my cousin fell off a balcony and cut her chin and that made us all more wary and afraid of being somewhere high because we could hurt ourselves.
“That fear of heights stayed with me, but in 2018, I decided to go and abseil down the ArcelorMittal
Orbit in London’s Queen Elizabeth Park!
“My inspiration was my mum, Kantaben, who at the time was fighting a heart condition. I thought that if her spirit, determination and strength could keep her going, then I could conquer the drop, doing something beyond my own control and out of my comfort zone to push myself. Taking on this crazy challenge to raise funds for the British Heart Foundation was a way for me to give something back as thanks for all the support the heart failure medical team in
North London gave my mum.
“I raised almost £1,000 for that one event. I deliberately looked down during the abseil as I wanted to challenge the fear. And having done that, only a few months after losing mum, I decided I would take on a skydive. This time, my son Akshay said that he’d love to do it with me. We signed up to do it in October last year, on what would have been mum’s birthday, wanting to celebrate it in the sky. But for various reasons, not least
“I looked down to challenge my fear!”
Covid-19, we had an anxious wait until the end of August this year. The poor weather caused several delays as well, and even on the day of the skydive it was touch and go, but finally, we were in the plane and climbing up.
“I was actually the first one out of the plane. One minute you are literally there on the edge of the plane and then the next thing you know, you are in freefall! The wind was quite fierce and it hit me hard, I had quite a head rush coming down. I thought about my lovely mum all the way down and what she would have said to see me doing it.
“Some people, like my son, come down and say that they want to go back up and do it all again. While I was exhilarated by it all and it was a really lovely experience to have together with my son, I didn’t have the same feeling. It is scary, when you’re up there in that plane you do think, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing, am I going to survive this?’ But it is a once in a lifetime experience and I’m really pleased that I did it. Now I’m buzzing, wondering what challenge I might do next!
“It proved to me that if you www.myweekly.co.uk can push yourself to do something challenging, like I did with the abseil, then you can push yourself even further to do something else.
“Completing the abseil gave me the courage to take that further step. For me, the sky dive was also about keeping
“She would have thought me to be quite mad!”
mum’s memory alive and, of course, to keep supporting the British Heart Foundation as it is a charity close to our hearts. I am pleased to say that Akshay and I raised nearly £1,600. We had fantastic support and encouragement throughout, including from the company where I was working, who already supported the British Heart Foundation within the work environment but also paid my sponsorship for both the abseil and the skydive.
“I believe that there is nothing that you can’t do, it is just having that mindset to push yourself and the right focus to want to do it. Mum was always such a big supporter of charities herself and always encouraged us to do the same, so she definitely would have approved of our achievements so far, even if she would have considered me quite mad to jump out of a plane! We gave her lots of photos of the abseil and she would proudly show them to all the carers and nurses who came to her home.
“It has been great to talk to the youngest generations of the family about our fundraising, who are all quite impressed by the skydive, and to inspire other people too. Hopefully people be encouraged to host a fundraising activity or support the charity in a different way. Or maybe they can look at me, at the age of 52, and think, ‘If she can do it, I can too’.”