A lot was mentioned these past few days about the Kennedy Assassination 60 years ago. I was reminded all day of this essay, a prose poem that I wrote shortly after my Mom’s death in 2011.

Memories:

My earliest memory is of my mother. My mother was twenty-nine years old and raising five kids, ages one to seven. On this day, a November afternoon in 1963, my younger siblings and I were watching the television. Preschoolers spending time with Mom.

My memory starts with me hearing my mother in the kitchen, softly crying. My brother, sister, and I were in the living room, idly watching the grainy, black-and-white image on the twelve-inch television screen; an image of white horses pulling a carriage holding a flag-draped casket.

I had no idea or comprehension of what it was all about. But I remember my mother in the kitchen, crying at the image of this death, this end of life.

And now, as I write this, I realize that the earliest memory I have of my mother mirrors the last memory I have of my mother… and tears run rampant.

My mother died in the fall, an October morning, forty-eight years later. We had her service later that week. I remember thinking, they were going to close the casket at nine p.m.; time to say goodbye. As nine p.m. approached and passed, I found myself crying, sobbing uncontrollably at the last image of my mother on this earth.

My first memory of my mom was of tears. My last memory of her was of tears; the first of sadness in her life; the last of the sadness in mine.