Author Laura Carney swam the French Broad while completing her late father's bucket list
Author Laura Carney’s newest release, “My Father’s List,” tells the story of how she discovered her late father’s bucket list years after his death and resolved to finish what he’d started by crossing off the remaining 54 items on her own.
For No. 24 on the list, "swim the width of a river," Carney came to Asheville and the French Broad River.
Carney will return to Asheville for a July 26 event organized with the help of Malaprop’s bookstore.
The event, a conversation with fellow author Ann Batchelder, will take place at the West Asheville Library at 6:30 p.m. Malaprop's will be on site selling copies of “My Father's List.” Copies are also available on the Malaprop’s website.
The list
Carney was 25 in 2003, the year her father was killed by a distracted driver. In November 2016, she began her six-year journey to complete the unfinished items on her father’s bucket list — a list she didn’t know existed until her brother found it just before her wedding.
“I've always looked at the list as my dad's wedding gift," she said. "Because I think I was having a bit of an existential crisis now that I was getting married and felt a little bit of societal pressure for who I was going to be. And I think finding my dad's dreams was like this great reminder for me of who he actually was.”
Carney said she started out on her journey with the idea of reminding the world of the value life holds through her father’s unrealized dreams, but quickly recognized that her mission would change her life forever.
Swimming the French Broad
For the item on the list about swimming the width of a river, Carney chose the French Broad to complete her mission while visiting relatives in Asheville.
"One of the things I started doing was combining list items whenever I could," she said. "If we were already going to be traveling somewhere, or if it was a time of year where we would travel, that would be where I would try to plant them. And we were already coming to Marion for my nephew's high school graduation."
Beyond convenience, Carney knew when she saw the French Broad that she would enjoy describing its natural beauty for her readers.
"I started doing some research with my sister-in-law," she said. "Once I knew I was going to write a book about this, I also started looking at it as a writer like, 'OK, what would be picturesque to write about?' When I saw what the French Broad looked like, I was like, 'Oh, that's great.'"
Carney swam a total of 1,000 feet in the waters of the French Broad on May 17, 2017, at Walnut Island River Park, completing her goal.
How did the journey change you?
“It made me juggle my priorities differently" Carney said. "It made me learn how to live authentically, how to be my true self and made me more confident.”
Carney said that she believed in her normal life she might have given up on some of the more ambitious items on her father’s list. Accomplishing these goals in his place kept her moving forward.
"I just always had this instinct that my dad was right behind me, not letting me fail," she said. "That the girl he thought I was still lived inside of me somewhere. I really just got in touch with believing more in my own dreams, and believing that they were possible for me.”
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Was any item more difficult than you expected?
Carney played tennis in high school, so when she saw beating a No. 1-seeded tennis player in a tournament was one of her father’s goals, she didn’t expect it to take longer than a day to complete. When a torn tendon during her first attempt left her stuck on the couch for two months, Carney said learned an important lesson.
“It was probably one of the most important ones, because I didn't know until I was stuck on that couch how obsessed I was with being self-sufficient," she said. "I think that's a normal thing for kids who had divorced parents — you know, sometimes you have to watch your siblings more, and you kind of learn to look out for yourself if your dad isn't around all the time. And for me to actually surrender to that and let my husband do things — let him help me — was really healthy for me. To just let him love me.”
Was finishing your father’s list emotionally taxing?
Carney said throughout the process of completing the list, she realized more and more just how much she had struggled with his death — and some things she struggled with during his life.
"There were so many times where I was just like, 'Oh, God, I'm becoming a dreamer just like my dad,' you know?" she said. "Like, this is not a good thing. And I think that's sort of how I saw him.”
In the end, though, Carney realized through her journey what really mattered to her.
"I think I just had to have that experience and recognize that it doesn't really matter if people judged him for that, or people judge me for that, because I believe in him," she said. "And I believe in his dreams, and I love that he did that. So you know, I'm just going to be true to my relationship with him. And what I found was the more practice I got at doing that, the better I started getting at trusting myself.”
Learn more about Laura Carney’s journey to complete her father’s list at myfatherslist.com.
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Iris Seaton is a news intern for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Author swam French Broad while completing late father's bucket list
