An etherealgirl's Adventures in Cyberland

Saturday, November 22, 2003

a sad and distant memory: losing camelot

The Day A Generation's Spirit Died:

"But what today's cynics miss -- remain, in fact, almost wholly blind to -- is the way and the success with which John Kennedy called us to something larger than ourselves. This is called leadership and we haven't seen anything remotely like it since. From any candidate of any party."

I was five years old. I had just gotten out of kindergarten and was with family running some early/pre-Thanksgiving Day grocery stocking up and other assorted errands. The excitement of the impending event was forever buried alongside the most ominous and heartwrenching news that came like an unwelcome visitor through our tinny little car radio.

The announcer was barely able to speak. When he was finished I watched in horror as my whole adult world, my safety net dissolved into a grief so deep as I have never witnessed before. I don't think I was fully capable of understanding that the President was really gone, much less how anyone could have done such an unspeakable thing. But I knew that something horrible beyond understanding had just occurred as I watched my maternal grandparents and my parents come completely undone with the news that we had just heard.

I was too young yet to understand that along with the President of the United States, an American Era of Innocence was put forever to rest and that from now on dreams were going to be sorely tested and the fight against cynicism would be a long and treacherous battle....

Posted by etherealfire :: 8:31 PM :: 0 Comments:

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