1. I looked out the window of our minivan for the first time in two hours, since we were going on vacation. We were heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge on a rainy, cold afternoon, when, for the first time in my life, I gasped out of absolute shock. I know, I know. Why gasp at a bridge? I mean, it’s only a bridge; it’s not like it was the first time in my life I’d seen a bridge. And it wasn’t. Instead, it was what was happening on the bridge that shocked me. There was a man, about in his mid-thirties, being held back by two older gentlemen. He was only wearing a white tank-top and jeans, with crazy hair and bloodshot eyes. He was screaming ridiculously, trying to get out of the men’s arms. “Let me do it,” he kept yelling at the guards. “Let me jump, you bastards!” We had been learning in class about California’s history, and the fact that the Golden Gate Bridge was the most popular place to commit suicide in the world had came up. The teacher handled it with ease, except when one girl who sat in the back row asked a simple question: “Why?” The teacher stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t have an honest answer for the girl. “Well,” she finally began, trying to state of an understandable explanation. “We have structure to our lives. We’re built on the foundation of our family, friends, and others we depend on, much like the bridge itself is. With time, we grow, and develop ourselves, and our “bridge” grows in size, until we hit a monumental moment, until we reach the sky. “Some people, however, aren’t built on a good foundation, or some have something else they come across that weakens their foundation. They can’t handle the pressure being put upon them, on their bridge, and the bridge comes crashing down, comes to an end. We can try prevent the crashes, of course, but sometimes they’ll happen, and they’ll just come crashing down anyway.” I sat there, in the minivan, staring at the man. He was now on his knees, sobbing into his tank-top, with one guard still holding on to him. The other was on the phone, talking to someone. He then put the man on the phone, which caused him to be even more hysterical. The man finally calmed down, hugged the guards, and was escorted back to his car. I thought about what my teacher said about the bridges, and the structure they needed. She had said that the foundation was the problem, and that, sometimes, you couldn’t stop the bridge from coming down. And, though that may be true, you can always rebuild. Photo credit: “Golden Gate Warning” by noesym

    I looked out the window of our minivan for the first time in two hours, since we were going on vacation. We were heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge on a rainy, cold afternoon, when, for the first time in my life, I gasped out of absolute shock. I know, I know. Why gasp at a bridge? I mean, it’s only a bridge; it’s not like it was the first time in my life I’d seen a bridge. And it wasn’t. Instead, it was what was happening on the bridge that shocked me.

    There was a man, about in his mid-thirties, being held back by two older gentlemen. He was only wearing a white tank-top and jeans, with crazy hair and bloodshot eyes. He was screaming ridiculously, trying to get out of the men’s arms.

    “Let me do it,” he kept yelling at the guards. “Let me jump, you bastards!”

    We had been learning in class about California’s history, and the fact that the Golden Gate Bridge was the most popular place to commit suicide in the world had came up. The teacher handled it with ease, except when one girl who sat in the back row asked a simple question:

    “Why?”

    The teacher stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t have an honest answer for the girl.

    “Well,” she finally began, trying to state of an understandable explanation. “We have structure to our lives. We’re built on the foundation of our family, friends, and others we depend on, much like the bridge itself is. With time, we grow, and develop ourselves, and our “bridge” grows in size, until we hit a monumental moment, until we reach the sky.

    “Some people, however, aren’t built on a good foundation, or some have something else they come across that weakens their foundation. They can’t handle the pressure being put upon them, on their bridge, and the bridge comes crashing down, comes to an end. We can try prevent the crashes, of course, but sometimes they’ll happen, and they’ll just come crashing down anyway.”

    I sat there, in the minivan, staring at the man. He was now on his knees, sobbing into his tank-top, with one guard still holding on to him. The other was on the phone, talking to someone. He then put the man on the phone, which caused him to be even more hysterical. The man finally calmed down, hugged the guards, and was escorted back to his car.

    I thought about what my teacher said about the bridges, and the structure they needed. She had said that the foundation was the problem, and that, sometimes, you couldn’t stop the bridge from coming down. And, though that may be true, you can always rebuild.

    Photo credit: “Golden Gate Warning” by noesym


Notes

  1. shaneblog posted this