MOAB, Utah — When Shannon Lloyd lost her husband Steven in a 2020 motorcycle accident, she never thought she would live life to the fullest again — that is, until she found herself on the edge of a Moab cliff this summer.
For her 52nd birthday, Lloyd traveled from her Tennessee residence for a weeklong journey to see the red rocks and national parks of Utah. Exploring the beauty of the Southwest had been on her vision board, and the trip was a long time coming.
“After widowhood, I found myself isolating, and that's not healthy," she said. "So I just wanted to live for him and enjoy life again. Do something adventurous, because I missed our adventures together."
Lloyd's solo trip took an adventurous turn when she found a video from Tandem BASE Moab, a local Moab business, on social media. The video inspired her to challenge herself and share the experience with her late soulmate.
“Not long before [Steven] passed away, he bought a map, and he wanted to frame that map and pin all the places that he had been,” Lloyd said. “Well, after he passed away, I got it framed, and I started putting pins in it.
“...Everywhere I've gone, that he had never gone, I have spread his ashes and put a little gold pin in that map for him, and I have green pins from where I have been. And so when I was going to Utah, he had never been to Utah, and I thought, 'Well, what better place to do it than during a BASE jump?'"
And that’s what she did.
On July 29, seconds before she jumped into Moab's Mineral Bottom Canyon, Lloyd spread some of her husband's ashes shouting the following words into the canyon below.
"Steven, I miss our adventures. I'm learning to find my own. Thank you for all your provisions and the character I see in my children, and all the love that you shared with me and the memories," she said before taking the leap of faith. "Rest easy in this beautiful place, my love. Meet me at the gate."
For Matt LaJeunesse, owner of Tandem BASE Moab, Lloyd's courage was something he had never witnessed before.
“I've been jumping long enough that I've seen a lot of people show up here to Moab to make a BASE jump, and they have this hero script where they think they're going to get out there and sound profound and motivational and be the next viral thing," LeJeunesse said. "And they get to the edge, and they can't even answer, ‘What is your name? Where are you from?’
"And then when Shannon started speaking, and words just started flowing out of her, I was in disbelief.”
LaJeunesse commended Lloyd's awareness.
“I've never seen anything like the way Shannon had memorialized her husband, and I thought it was really an incredible reflection of her that she opted to do it on the cliff edge, not during the jump," LeJeunesse said.
Lloyd said scattering her husband's ashes before the jump was intentional. She wanted to be present as she floated away from the edge of the cliff and take in the views of the red rocks that drew her to Utah.
“I'm not a daredevil ... but as the parachute came out and I opened my eyes, I just felt light free, like I was flying, like I was meant to be there," she recalled. "It's been four-and-a-half years and it's still heavy, but I needed to lighten that load, and I just wanted him to know that I'm going to live and I'm going to enjoy it because he loved life, he loved people.”
