The Story of Beautiful Jumper

We are all mad. Some of us have simply tripped over our madness into despair, allowed the flip side to tip way too far, wobbling uncontrollably, careening us towards the edge, instead of simply grabbing our flailing limbs like we're engaged in the momentary folly of a passionate tango or treading water through to the perfect storm. Some of us pause in midstream, giving their thoughts way too much power. Thoughts are simply that, like birds on a high wire ready to fly at any given moment in the opposite direction. No thought, how lingering or fleeting, should extinguish our last precious breath...but for some, sadly they do. Yet for others, there’s “another chance.” JW
                                                           

It was summer of 1983, and I was on my usual run across the Golden Gate Bridge, trying to find the strength to heal myself after falling ill, and the recent loss of my sister.

I had ear buds planted in my head with music rooting itself in and around my heart while my body ran, ran, and ran, trying to move the pain of this period through and behind me. The bridge was the perfect symbol for me then, as I struggled to get my fractured self back into one piece.

Just two weeks earlier the Red Cross had traveled two hours up the winding dirt roads 100 miles north of San Francisco to find me, past the occasional pot farm with peacocks that roamed the rugged terrain. We had no phones at the college nestled within the old logging mountains in a desolate area of California. I was already bottomed out from selling everything to move across the country to begin school the month before, only to contract Rocky Mountain Fever.

When the Red Cross pulled up, I saw the somber expression on the man who was looking for me. I identified myself, and he told me that my sister, Jill, had driven into a brick wall and killed herself. I'd dreamt of her death one week earlier, symbolized by the image of me driving my car down a lonely highway then forced to come to an abrupt stop, causing my female dog to fly into the windshield and die instantly. I awoke with a heavy feeling in my chest, wondering if the dream was a premonition.

My sister chose the Fourth of July to end her life—the same day my mother died five years earlier. Jill had been despondent over her daughter marrying into a family of religious extremists who condemned her for her lifestyle choices. I believe it all came down on her in the end. Her only child judging her so harshly was in some ways a replay of what she endured herself as a young woman—trapped in the closet and wanting to get out. It could have been the diamond ring her girlfriend brought over when asking for Jill’s hand in marriage that sent my father and brother into a macho spin; they didn't waste a minute kidnapping her and committing her to an institution then threatening her girlfriend from ever coming around again. That was the 50's, after all.

So while driving to the rehearsal dinner for her daughter’s wedding, my sister ran herself into the brick wall, killing herself over the painful shame that nibbled away at her core. I doubt if her daughter ever suspected Jill’s private struggle with being gay. I came down off the mountain and made my way to Denver, where I found myself entering a hellhole of insanity. I met with Jill's daughter Jody, now a pale shadow of her former self, her previously bright eyes were now vacant and unemotional. She had gone ahead with her wedding the day after Jill’s death, without any regrets. At the end of the ceremony, my sister’s friends took their place in the receiving line to congratulate the blushing bride—only to have her tell them, one by one, that her mother had died the night before. They all met with me at the funeral several days later, astonished, confused, their feelings ambushed after attending the wedding. Their spirits high for the bride, then searching in vain for Jill’s presence in the crowd, not knowing anything about her fate until the nuptials were said and done.

At the funeral we all stood above the closed coffin with our glowing tributes to such a beautiful soul. As I finished my poems with words that fell like diamonds on her sealed remains, the pastor stood up and walked to the head of the casket to perform the coup de gras. While reciting words from the Bible about the love of Christ, he whip-lashed open the cover to reveal the unrecognizable body of my sister, her head now wrapped in a bloodstained gauze turban in the process of cerulean decay. "Let this be a lesson to all of those who drink and drive," he proclaimed to all in attendance. I screamed out, echoed by my sister's friends. We all stormed out of the service leaving our reverberating voices in our wake.

It was only two weeks later, after I went back to the mountain to quit school and retrieve my belongings, then head back to San Francisco, that my life took yet another powerful turn...



The Golden Gate Bridge was wrapped in foggy layers of a chilly mist that caressed my face. A welcomed gentle touch that soothed my fragile spirit. My head turned in slow motion to the left, while my legs just kept up a rhythmic pace on my run. It was then that I saw about 30 people gathered at the edge of the rail. One person was leaving when I asked him what was going on. "Someone's going to jump off the bridge,” he said.

A force out of nowhere levitated me towards the rail, breaking through the crowd, looking over the edge into the shattered eyes of a shaken young woman. She was sitting on the ledge quietly looking down at the water below, ready to extinguish her life. Just snuff it out with a leap and a prayer. The crowd was frozen, doing nothing. My emotions around my sister's suicide were still raw and fresh on my mind, but I mysteriously became calm for what needed to be done.

I asked a man close to me, Who was she? A nurse, he said, and this was her second attempt. The ironworkers were preparing to sneak up on her from below the maze of scaffolding, but were not sure if they would make it in time to grab her. I leaned over and started to talk to her, trying to stall her for time. Her face looked up at me locking her eyes with mine. We were now in this together.

I gave her permission to leave, but first asked her to write a note to those she loved. I fumbled for a pen, hoping those few seconds would be just enough for the iron workers to grab her. I kept still, calmly telling her that it was okay to be in such pain, but that trying to solve what might be a temporary state of mind, with such a permanent decision may not be the answer, but if she insisted on doing this, just write that note to her loved ones—don’t take them with you. She then finished her note, and with a shaking hand looked me square in the eye again, while handing it to me, in what felt like slow motion. I took a deep breath. She was ready, there was absolutely no more stalling her, no more time left...

Then they grabbed her! She wilted into their arms like a small child exhausted from herself at the end of a long day.

I climbed into the van and went away with her. They checked her limp and troubled self into the hospital. I never saw her again. I didn't get her name.

I was amazed with the timing of it all, the cycle of life, as though this event had been the perfect storm. I was that person in the right place at the right time, all opened up and raw for justice and for life and the living. Like a force of nature, I was drawn to intervene. It simply wasn’t her time. It left me stunned. Not long after, I wrote a poem about the experience, titled "Beautiful Jumper."

I'd originally trekked up that mountain north of San Francisco shortly before to start my life in a new direction, leaving behind the arts to work in the health field, never realizing my future fate would be so shaped by that experience. It seemed like a powerful initiation. I was drawn to work in the front row of service rather than what I saw then as the egocentrism of the arts. I wanted to make a real difference. After San Francisco and the death of my sister, I was compelled to start a private practice devoting my life to the LGBT community, specifically AIDS patients, at the height of the epidemic during the early 80’s and in the process confronting death and dying larger than anything I'd dealt with before.

But now after several decades of being in service of others, after that event on the Golden Gate Bridge and years of being in the healing arts beyond that, I realized it was now time to rescue myself. I needed to become an artist full-time and unleash the creative juices that were fermenting deep in my soul. I needed to retreat from the rewards of helping others toward the gifts of finding myself.

That opened up a transformation for me that was remarkable and I often wonder about the woman, on the bridge, if her life transformed as deeply as mine by the experience? I left my private practice entirely two years ago—and re-entered the arts. Ironies of ironies. As part of that process, I wound up working with several local musicians and setting some of my poems—including "Beautiful Jumper"—to music. The event that inspired this song 30 years earlier had followed me tenaciously all the while, biting my heels until I could bring it to life now. That incident on the Bridge set into motion a series of events that eventually became the last song to finish my album “Another Chance”. Above is a clip of the song and here are the lyrics from “Beautiful Jumper” that grew out of that long-ago poem:

Your crowd's gathering
Like rosary beads
Cascading through your palm
There you sit
Over the rail
Of the Golden Gate Bridge

You're a stranger
A falling star
Swinging your legs
All alone
It's a crazy thing to do
But I'm not blaming you

(Chorus)
Hold on, hold on
I'm trying to buy you some time
Hold on
Hold on
I'm urging you to wait
Just a few more minutes

I understand your need to jump
You have the right to leave
But first write a note
To all those you love

The fog starts to lift
I fumble for a pen
A piece of paper flies her way
As the others move in

(Chorus)
Hold on, hold on
I'm trying to buy you some time
Hold on
Hold on
I'm urging you to wait
Just a few more minutes

You think you found
the perfect way out
You think your gonna be free
It's just a thought
A moment in time
Erasing your heartbeat

They say you've tried
This once before
To fade beneath the waves
A whisper reaches out to you
To hold on and stay

(Chorus)
Hold on, hold on
I'm trying to buy you some time
Hold on, hold on
I'm urging you to wait
Just a few more minutes
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