The Golden Gate Bridge is seen at dusk in San Francisco. While tourists stroll up and down it every day, on average someone jumps to their death every 13 days. Unlike other iconic structures, this bridge does not have a suicide barrier. After the Gamboa family lost their son to suicide, they resolved to do everything they could to campaign for a suicide barrier.

(Published in the San Francisco Chronicle)

Kathy Contway remembers her grandson, Kyle Gamboa, 18, who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death in 2013, as she stands on the Municipal Pier in San Francisco. She says that grandparents are often the "forgotten mourners" during tragedies like this.

A flock of birds flies beneath the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. At 11:45 a.m. on Sept. 20, 2013 Kyle stopped his truck in the middle of the highway, stepped out, ran onto the pedestrian walkway and jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death.

Drawings of Kyle hang at his home in Sacramento. His classmates drew the portraits a few days after his death, and his family has never taken them down.

Manuel Gamboa III sits on his bed in San Francisco. He is two years older than his brother Kyle and says that he never told him that he was struggling with anything. Manuel's favorite last memory was going to the California State Fair weeks before Kyle's death and spending time together – just the two of them.

Manuel Gamboa Jr., Kyle’s father, looks around his son’s unchanged bedroom in Sacramento. He is still searching for answers as to why Kyle left them five years earlier.

Kymberlyrenee Gamboa, Kyle's mother, refuses to wash the last cup Kyle drank from. He had stopped at a McDonald's to get orange juice and a sandwich on his drive to San Francisco before jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge.

The bay as seen from the Golden Gate Bridge. This is the second most popular place in the world to commit suicide after China’s Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. Unlike other iconic structures like the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building, this does not have a suicide barrier.

Manuel Gamboa, Jr. speaks at the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District Board Meeting in San Francisco. Collectively, at least one Gamboa family member has attended every monthly meeting petitioning for a suicide barrier since Kyle jumped in 2013. The parents normally attend and make the four-hour round-trip drive from Sacramento to speak for two minutes.

Priya Clemens, left, director of public affairs, and Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, public affairs specialist, both for the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District, watch an update on the construction of the suicide barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Manuel Gamboa III holds a picture that a child drew for him at the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District Board Meeting. For his parents, these meetings are a way for them to cope with loss through activism, but for Manuel, they bring back the hard memories.

Erika Brooks, who lost her adopted daughter to a Golden Gate Bridge suicide, writes names of other suicide victims at Baker Beach. Throughout the day, families and friends take turns writing every recorded name of a bridge suicide victim - around 2,000 - in the sand and watch the waves wash them away.

Kathy Contway, far right, Kyle's grandmother, holds hands with survivors as Dana Bark, third from left, burns sage at Baker Beach. Dana lost his son Donavan Bark to a Golden Gate Bridge suicide in 2008 and started "Names in the Sand."

According to witnesses, on Sept. 20, 2013, Kyle drove across the bridge southbound coming from Sacramento, turned his truck around and jumped near Pole 77.