A Reflection

Maybe it's because I am of that generation which vividly remembers the heart-ache of those November days which began with gunshots in Dealy Plaza...who still can be transported back through decades of ordinary life by flickering images seared on grainy film...to feel again thegut-wrenching shock and sorrow that wounded a whole nation. The elegant widow who brought such grace to her mourning...and the little boy in the blue jacket who marked his third birthday by raising his handin salute to the father he would never know...no images are more powerful to those who experienced -- with an intensity that only happens the first time -- how television could make us members of one grieving family. That little boy...peeking at photographers from under his father's Oval Office desk...running into his father's arms...laughing when they played...perfectly expressed our American innocence and hope for thefuture. Then, one pathetic man with a gun in just moments made us uncertain about where the world was taking us. It's just as well we didn't know. It wasn't about politics. It wasn't even about Kennedys. It was about a magic that now is hard to imagine. We've become so jaded. If you weren't there, and you weren't open to it, then you will have no idea what I'm talking about. The exceptionally handsome magazine publisher and his exceptionally beautiful wife made news from time to time, but I really couldn't connect him to the long-ago little boy, any more than Mrs. Onassis had much to do with the veiled woman walking behind the caisson bearing the shatteredbody of a President. So, I'm sadder than I might have expected at this morning's news about the missing plane piloted by John Kennedy Jr. It's the more poignant becauseit was to be a happy trip, to witness the marriage of the one daughter Robert Kennedy would never hold is his arms...she was safely in her mother's womb when a bullet ripped the life out of her father. We can hope that the magazine publisher, his bride, his sister-in-law, and the flight instructor are all waiting to be rescued...I keep going to Newsday's AP website looking for good news. There isn't any. Now they report that the plane was within just miles of Martha's Vineyard whenradar last spotted it...over water. Jesse Jackson said once that the biggest mistake human beings make is to live each day as though life is certain and death is uncertain. John Kennedy Jr. is 38...he could be forgiven for thinking that life is certain for him, I suppose, and so he leaves no son to miss him as he doubtless missed his father. I've been listening to my "Out of Africa" CD as I write...there's a Scandinavian melancholy to it that suits me and the morning. I don'treally want to watch television because they keep replaying that black-and-white film of the little boy saluting... AP has a story which doubtless will be lost in all the attention on the Kennedy mystery, about a father's search for his son missing inArizona...it is wonderfully written by Helen O'Neill...if you don't find the story of Damean in your paper, and want to read it, I can send it to you. Life continues to be about loss and love and hope...and mostly aboutfaith.