She had to hold on to her hat with her left hand to prevent it from being blown away by the wind while she finishes trimming the last bits of the rose bush. It was the start of summer in southern Florida. The sea breeze perfumed the garden that was part of the oasis in which they would make occasional escapes every summer. That was the image she still kept in her mind. That woman was her mother, a woman forever beautiful if not forever in her youth. A woman who always looked strong, well-anchored in her life, stood her ground against all adversities, exterior or interior. And in her image, while thinking about her mother finishing the last chores in the garden, she could hear tango music in the background, the really old stuff. The whole family always listened to it; it dominated the background of their lives, their minds. The music flowed easily through the synapses of their psyches, just as well the sea breezes that bathed the tranquil community where they had vacationed. And specifically, in the background, in her imagination now, was the song called "Corazón de Oro", "Heart of Gold."
This image might not have happened at all; very likely there was tango playing in the background, but probably not that particular song. But while she stood behind the fence, looking into the opening of the sea, she saw her mother holding on to her hat and she heard that song.
In that song a mother plays a pivotal role in the story, the story of growing up in a harsh life but learning, from the mother, to have a heart of gold, full of love, devoid of bitterness. And the voice of the woman singing just tears your heart apart with love that aims to release the love inside it. She thought of that song many times when she thought about her mother. The wind was coming from behind her, carrying out to the sea. This was the Golden Gate Bridge, the bridge she always felt most attached to. The sea was different from where her mother was clipping the roses. It was more blue, the air was colder, and here the openness of the sea was slightly constricted by the land on both sides of her view. In Florida she could look out to the sea from the cliff just outside their vacation house and would feel at once free and lost. Here, she felt she still had one leg in a troubling place attached to land but also had hope of an imminent liberty ahead.
The fence had been in place for a few years now, to prevent people from jumping off the bridge, the most popular bridge for committing suicide. There were phones everywhere under huge signs that urge would-be bridge-jumpers that help was available and that life was worth living. She stood within view of such sign and phone. She was standing in front of another such place a little less than a year ago. Despite the fence, there were ways to jump off the bridge. The fence just makes you want to think twice. It might have helped. And at that moment she didn't look much different than now. Her eyes were, perhaps, a little darker, more sunken, but its hopelessness wasn't as deep. She couldn't, at that point, bring herself to recall any happy memories as she did now. She drove to the parking lot where all the tourists went, except that it was in the evening, the sun had set an hour ago, the air was thickening with fog, and no tourists were in sight. The sea presented itself as a dark monster sighing below, a dark, invisible monster. She walked up the bridge, with quite a few cars passing by but they, like the monster below, were invisible creatures that didn't mind her at all. The fog made the bridge ever colder. She was walking up the eastern side of the bridge, which didn't look very red in the feeble mercury vapor light. The arch where she stopped looked more like a helpless giant that could do no more for her than bid her farewell. Its metallic coldness and static frailty was betrayed when darkness had stripped it of its superficial beauty given by the sun during the day. And at the foot of this giant, she looked out into the darkness. Yonder were glimmers of lights, some from the houses that lined the Oakland Bay, and then there were hints of that massive city of Oakland. She looked down and saw that some of the waves producing the sighing of the sea were visible in the light cast from below the bridge. She heard the beckoning of the monster below. She was facing the land whence she had driven, or was it the land that had driven her away, wanting very much to expel her to the sea she seemed so much to be a part of.
She wasn't thinking about anyone, not the least her mother or the tango music that infused the better parts of her memories. She wasn't thinking about the people who have maltreated her, the people she had held responsible for her downfall. She was simply feeling pain at least a magnitude greater than any physical pain she had experienced. She looked up the giant beside her once again and realized the fog had thickened so much that the outline of this helpless being had been blurred already. The anti-suicide sign and phone next to her didn't attract her attention. She stepped a little closer to the edge again, and her heart, so full of sorrow and yet still biological, started beating faster.
Was it out of fear, she wondered now. No, her heart wasn't the coward. Her heart was the strongest part of her body, especially that day. The song was still in her mind, repeating itself by moving back and forth to different parts. She touched wires that formed the fence, and slowly, the memory of that day faded like the fog and in its place the continuous image of her mother who, like the song, had given her a heart of gold. It wasn't perfectly shiny, it wasn't perfectly strong, but it was enough to keep her from making that final step into the darkness below. Her mother wasn't there, not even in her mind, to hold her back, but she had left her with a beating heart that defied the weakness of her body, of her mind. She was feeling the texture of the fence, its slight coldness, and she smiled as the memory of many conversations with her mother began to resurface, and in many of these conversations they were sitting outside, facing the mid-Atlantic, her hands on these metallic chairs, her fingers feeling the metallic surface, much the same feeling her fingers now felt.
