Remembering President Kennedy

We stood on the dry grass between the two houses. Mrs. Taylor from next door was whispering. At three and a half, I was about as tall as my mother's hip. She held my younger sister in her arms as she leaned in to listen. I couldn't hear their words, but I sensed great concern. I chased dry leaves to keep myself occupied.

When Dad came home he sat on the couch riveted to the news. His expression was blank, shocked. It was the first time that I had ever heard the word 'assassinated', but I knew immediately what it meant.

Two days later my father tried to explain a complex series of events. "Oswald shot Kennedy, and then Jack Ruby shot Owsald." Jack who? - I wondered. It was more than my young mind could comprehend. It was more than anyone could comprehend.

We watched the solemn march on television, the casket pulled by horses. Jackie stood bravely with her two children. Young John saluted.

This was my world as a child. A world where even our President could be taken away in a moment of insanity. A world destined to change in ways that we could not yet imagine.  A nation, shocked and grieving, yearning for answers, answers that would come slowly and be forever shrouded in suspicion and in doubt. Our country found itself at the breaking point, ready to fracture into bitter divisions over race and class and war and peace and rights and sex and lifestyle.

I can't imagine where we would be if the incident had never happened, but that day marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new age, an age of cynicism and complexity, but also of possibility. One man was gone, and the rest of us would ever be the same.

Copyright © 2013 Daniel R. South
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