The knot is tied. The balloons won’t come apart. Each is similar, yet unique, different, but the same.

They have the same amount of helium, at least at a glance, but you never know about balloons. They were filled with flight giving helium about the same time, but sometimes a balloon leaks unexpectedly. Its smooth surface becomes slack and loose.  It doesn’t bounce or move like a newly filled balloon. Instead of rising to the ceiling, it begins to float around a room mid-air, eventually dropping even further until finally it rests on the floor.

Turn a full helium balloon loose outside and it flies freely, climbing higher and higher! They are easy to see at first, but become smaller as they rise to wherever the winds blow until they finally look like tiny dots before disappearing from sight.

In some ways, two balloons tied together go farther, climb higher, move faster. They catch more wind together than individually. In the long run though one, or both, go flat. Maybe one is accidentally punctured by a tree branch. Maybe the weather changes and cold air causes the balloons to move less freely. Maybe they just sail along until they simply wear out.

At first the stronger balloon keeps the flight moving and helps pull the other along. When one loses enough helium to start going flat, the other drops too.

Maybe they’ll land in a pasture, get tangled in a tree top, bounce along a roadway, or even land on the ocean, but somewhere off in the distance, the balloons will come to rest.

Where and why they end really isn’t important. No amount of calculation or speculation will change a thing.  Somehow, someway, sometime the balloons go down, together.

What’s important are the skies they cover, the miles they see, the journey they travel. Whether the flight is smooth and easy, or rough and hard, side by side, or pull and push, their flight is a voyage to treasure.

It’s easy to dread, even fear, one or both of the balloons going flat, so that the heart drastically guards itself from a future fall that may, or not, happen tomorrow, next year, or decades from now.

To live in fear replaces helium with flat, stale air and casts a judge and jury verdict on life.  It is a dire trepidation that even when a balloon is full, fear keeps it on the ground. Falling to the ground is never as important as rising in the sky.

What is important is how they fly, not where, but how. May the balloons soar to great heights. May they smile, laugh and dance well. May they love, welcome and serve. May they teach, guide and provide. May they fly so completely that each day is thoroughly tasted and slurps of the moments drip off their chins.

Fly the adventure. Feel deeper. Hear better. Taste more. See farther.

One day, when one or both balloons go flat, don’t lament or bemoan the loss of tomorrow, but rather savor the heights of heaven more than ever.