When I first voiced my fears for the lives of Mr and Ms Kennedy and her sister (with my friends), I was told there were many other lives lost in the sea and to mourn for these three because they're good-looking and rich and famous - well, isn't that hypocritical? So I kept my mouth shut. The way I kept it shut through the tragedy of Princess Di.
But I was so restless throughout the week-end, I wouldn't watch the TV, listen to the radio or read the paper. I felt grief for someone who was so foreign and so unrelated to me. Maybe it's because he was Catholic. A Kennedy. Or probably the sexiest hunk alive. Or he was a writer one way or another. Or ...I don't know.
While growing up I remember there was one big house with a beautiful garden amidst the ordinary houses and lots in our neighborhood. The house was owned by a nationally famous Doctor and he was a recluse and a bourgeois. But everyone considered him a gem because he had a beautiful house. The house stood where it was for years and years and when we natives had guests coming to visit the village, we would claim with defensive pride, "We may be poor and laid back; we may be uneducated and our house look this bad but you see, if you'd just come along for a walk, yes follow me... there you see that house with a beautiful garden? A very famous Doctor lives there." After saying this we'd carefully observe the expression of our guests, expecting them to marvel at the beautiful house and its beautiful garden and its famous Doctor and then carry-over that marvel at us, as if by the mere presence of that house and garden and Doctor among us, we were all equally worthy of their praise.
So I want to write this now...I am compelled to write this before I lay down to sleep, before I forget all about it after this Sunday night...
I am used to human tragedy, sickness and death. In my hospital work, I look at these with impartial objectivity. But right this very moment, this exact moment, I cannot keep my mind and emotions settled, like so many Americans, I feel as though I lost something important.
I roamed around today, I've spent barbecuing with my friends, fixing another friend's scanner even, and driving here and there. All these I did becaue I could not accept America's loss of John F. Kennedy Jr.
I never considered meeting JFK Jr. personally in my lifetime. He being Catholic and straight and married and famous and classy and good looking and athletic would probably not even stare towards my direction perchance I pass his way.
Yet I find him a kind man, his type of kindness is one which is exuded in the air. Call it vibes or a halo, but I saw it in the way he looked at his mother, the way he touched the tomb of his father, the way he kissed the hand of his bride. Yeah, I saw the goodness of his heart though those simple unspoken gestures.
A kindness rising out of his own tragedy, unimaginable losses which no amount of fame or looks or money could replace. JFK Jr had more sorrows than most of us. And his sister Caroline has more sorrows than almost all of us.
Their father died when they were kids, their mother died only recently.
Now Caroline has to carry all the sorrow she used to share with her brother...in addition to sharing sorrows with the Bessette family.
I turn my eyes away, look at the sky and utter my usual mantra: "Nothing, nothing, all is nothingness."
I know all of us, gay or straight, are meant to enter death eventually. I am always courageous in life, propelled by the fact that everything I did and do are doomed to oblivion and nothingness.
Tell me, three hundred or four hundred years from now, what will the world say about us?
At that future time, even JFK Jr would probably be just a mere name in history books, a Valentino or Marlene Monroe, a footnote to history, someone described with words like - a hunk from a famous political family. Yes, that's how cruel history is, that's how nothing everything is...
But right this moment, this very moment, the impact of whatever happened to JFK Jr is similar to the impact the day the beautiful house with a beautiful garden in our village burned down. Oh God, how we tried to save the house. How we all stood there stupefied and shocked and helpless as it buckled and surrendered to the jaws of fire. We all suddenly lost something important in our lives.
Oh God, why them?
There were icons I wanted to grow old with. I wanted Princess Di to grow old with me. I wanted John F Kennedy Jr. to grow old with me. I fantasized writing a book so good it would be read by them. They were the pride of my generation. They were kind and good and beautiful like the house I used to love. They were rarities in this day and age and with them vanishing, I seem to get older, much much more alone, a bit less inspired.
Perhaps this is the tragedy of mankind; the nothingness and vanity we've been unaware of. I pray his Mom and Dad would meet them, John, Carolyn and Laura in that bright new life somewhere. I wish them all love and fun.
Yeah, I'd like to imagine his end this way...I'd be happy imagining
their end this way...(i'm still hoping to pull this article out because they're alive)
