#dearest jackie

I was 12 years old. We heard a commotion outside of our classroom at JHS 285. We were dismissed from school early. We were unaware of what had happened except to say that something extraordinarily bad had occurred. I went home and put on the TV. For the next few days, I along with the rest of the nation was transfixed and stunned by what had happened in Dallas. President Kennedy was the first President that my generation could relate to in a very personal way. We, along with just about every other American was stunned that something like this could happen here. We saw Ruby shooting Oswald and Walter Cronkite in tears announcing the death of a President. I had no idea about his politics. I felt as if President Lincoln was killed before my very eyes. It was my own personal loss of innocence...

I was in Mrs. Bornheimer's second grade classroom in rural Wisconsin when the news came across the school's public address system. I remember falling out of my desk chair in shock and sadness. We were sent home, and like most Americans, our family spent the next few days watching the sad proceedings on the television screen.

I was a new visiting nurse teaching a young, new German mother how to bathe her newborn when the news came over the radio, thank God I did not drop the baby! We both began to cry, When I left I saw all the traffic cops in tears and people were streaming into the large Catholic church downtown. Everyone was in disbelief, the day just stopped for us, we were glued to the TV all weekend and into the next week. Such widespread sorrow.

I remember going into the coat room and burying my face in the jackets to cry. Last year on Facebook a woman sent me a message asking me if I was the Richard that comforted her when JFK was killed. It made me cry with both sadness and with the joy of her remembering.

I was in class at Brooklyn College when someone was suddenly at the door, breathlessly uttering that the president had been shot. Everyone was stunned...and no one knew quite what to do, but we started to walk downstairs and out of Boylan Hall, flowing into the Quadrangle. Everyone was in complete shock and disbelief...and very quiet. My own private devastation took hold as I suddenly saw the flag at half staff, which meant that it really was true... and that our lives had been changed forever. And, they were.

I was in the third grade. I watched it on TV. I sat on the floor in front of the TV and watched my mother cry. This was 1963, we were one of the very few Black families that lived in White Plains, NY at the time. I will never forget seeing John John salute the casket and I thought that Jackie Kennedy was so beautiful on the day she paid her respects to her husband. I was so young I didn't really understand all that was happening, but I knew the world would be different after that.

I was only 14 at the time, and though we watched it all unfold on the unprecedented 24-hour television coverage, by the time Monday arrived, and the route of the funeral procession was made public, my parents decided that we had to drive to Washington to pay our respects. We lived nearby and parked near Arlington. Thousands of people lined the streets, but there was only silence, until the muffled drumming and then his casket passed us. Just 20 feet from where we stood. As long as I live I will never forget that day.

A second grader in Catholic school at the time, I vividly remember our teacher, Sister Benigna, coming back into the classroom and asking us all to stand up and pray for our fallen President Kennedy. Returning home from school, I found my mother in front of the television watching the news coverage. She could barely talk about what had happened. I watched all the coverage the next few days with my family and remember feeling such deep sadness for Mrs.Kennedy, Caroline, and John, and trying to understand why this would happen to such a beautiful family and to our country. I thought about how I had my father, a local democratic politician, hand out campaign material for Mr.Kennedy when he was running for President. I recalled praying the rosary with my my mother and siblings during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and wondering what my mother was so worried about.