Like a bridge over troubled water.

I already know I'm not going to do this post justice, but bear with me.

Last night I watched The Bridge. I kinda wished I'd watched this The Bridge instead, or this version, or even - God forbid - this version, but alas, I did not.

I don't even know what to say about this documentary. Part of me was absolutely furious that this was acceptable as a film. Seriously? You stand a quarter mile away from a bridge and film people jumping off it for a year? You are not at least partially responsible for their death? Wouldn't your time and your documentary have been better off standing on the bridge talking people down from their death?

The other part of me was fascinated. Not with watching people fall to their deaths - which this film does show, and it was horrifying, ye be warned - but with the thought process demonstrated by the family members/friends of those who jumped.

I've known a few suicidal people in my life who thankfully didn't end up going through with it for various reasons (heavy medication and/or 24 hour family/friend surveillance and/or incarceration in one way or another) and I've experienced how difficult it can be to "talk someone down" from wanting to end their life.

Throughout the film I had mixed feelings toward the family members and friends who described their loved ones with straight faces and no tears, and I wondered - did they really do everything in their power to save their family member or friend...? But in the end, who am I to judge? All accounts indicated that they did what they knew how to do, and their feelings of frustration and helplessness and subsequent exhaustion and straight-facedness (as heartbreaking as they were) were understandable. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, this was the best resolution for the men and women who jumped.

I hate the idea that the Golden Gate Bridge seems to romanticize this option for those who have no hope for anything better. Or even make it easy for people. When my brother visited a few years ago and we walked across the bridge, he and I were both actually surprised to see all the "emergency call boxes" - I had no idea how frequently this type of thing occurred. Twenty-some deaths in 2004, and surely the number grows by the year.

I'm not pro-wires or nets or whatever to prevent people from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. What I am "pro" is for us a society to take a good hard look at why so many people are depressed and what we can realistically do about it.

Attention, future new president of the USA: How about, out with the reactive, in with the proactive. In this instance and in so many other instances. We need an FDR, a JFK, an MLK. And we need them NOW.