1000. Jen

I have an excellent memory. Somewhat encyclopedic. Friends have joked that I remember things that have happened in their lives but they have since forgotten. Remembering is important and comforting to me. It keeps things alive, it affirms, it is a way for me to see myself and truly see others. An act of care for others, a way for current me to care for younger me. But I have no recollection of the day my mom told me that my dad did not, in fact, die in a hiking accident. That he had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.

The walkway of the Golden Gate Bridge is about 250 feet above the water. The railings are easily scaled and there are no suicide barriers, even though more than 1700 people have died there since the bridge opened in 1937. A barrier wasn't even approved until 2008, but the Bridge board formally delayed the project until 2017. The first bids came in at more than double the original $76 million estimate, threatening to delay construction even further. Construction finally began in April 2017, with a price tag of $200 million. The rationale for no barriers was an aesthetic one. Many people oppose nets and safety barriers because they don't want to obstruct the view. Even if it saves lives, people often don't want a visual representation of human suffering and despair. There might be subconscious cost-benefit analysis at play, as well. A false yet common judgement about suicide victims is that they are lost causes. That expensive barriers are futile, delaying the inevitable. However, in 2016 alone, bystanders helped prevent 200 suicides from taking place at the Golden Gate Bridge—more than one every other day.

After jumping, it takes 4 seconds to hit the water. At the moment of impact, a body is falling at 86 miles per hour. The Center for Suicide Prevention in Calgary states that out of the more than 1700 who have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge over the years, only 25 have survived. The rest die from internal injuries and broken bones, drown in the frigid tumultuous waters that straddle the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, or succumb to hypothermia. As we say in my family, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop.

My dad was 6'3", slender and beautiful, almost all legs. His legs would have scaled the railings very easily. What did his last moments on that June day look like? Did he walk with purpose and go right over the edge in one continuous, unstoppable movement? Did he pace back and forth, convincing himself that this is what he needed to do for himself, for us? Or did he pause and hang on to the railings for a bit before he willed himself to let go? Often when someone takes his or her own life by way of some sharp object, there are hesitation wounds. One of my greatest worries is that someone saw this happen. That someone tried or didn't try to intervene and had to witness terrifying pain. Does this image haunt them still? Do my dad's hesitation wounds mark their bodies?

A couple of days before he died, my dad checked himself into a psychiatric facility in Marin County. Since his teen years, he had dealt with severe bipolar episodes. I don't know what was going on in that particular moment – why this moment seemed more unlivable than others. He had a dentist appointment set for the following week. Why would he have made a dentist appointment – both a mundane task and an act of self-care – if he didn't plan on being alive to go to it? His death couldn't have been completely planned – there must have been an impulsive part of it. A horrible impulse that could never be taken back. Since he checked himself in, he was allowed to check himself out. When he left the facility, he left his will on his bed. On it, he wrote, "Cath can keep the kids."

My parents had divorced a...