Scientific studies have shown that our memory, more often than not, plays tricks on us. What we remember and what actually happened are often very different; a fact that's nicely illustrated in one of my favorite books, Mary McCarthy's "Memories of a Catholic Girlhood."
My memories include four years spent at a Catholic all-girls high school in Buffalo, NY. I recall sitting in 11th-year math class after a typical Friday quiz when our Principal came on the school's intercom to announce that President Kennedy had been shot. And not long after to tell us that he'd died.
East Coast. Irish. Catholic. For us, being told that President Kennedy was dead was unimaginable. I don't remember much about the rest of the day except walking home from school. I remember it was a beautiful day. I remember the leaves piled at the curbs and covering the sidewalks. I remember the sound and the feel of them crunching underfoot. Somehow I felt that if I just kept moving I would reach Washington, D.C. That the sidewalk would roll out before me like a spool of thread that I could follow.
Fifty years later I've always assumed my memory played me false. It was almost the end of November; the perfect autumn day of my memory can't really be true. When you're a teenager it certainly doesn't occur to you that you will still be here fifty years later wishing you memorized the moment.
Of course, we all did memorize the moment but it's mostly a blur of repeated shocks, sadness and tears. For the first time in my life I saw my father cry. And I saw his father cry. There was never a more sad Thanksgiving or quiet Christmas. Life evertually returned to normal but it was never the same again. We understood that everything we had taken for granted could disappear in a moment. A lesson that's been endlessly repeated across the world for the last five decades.
But the memory that's stayed with me of walking home on a beautiful autumn afternoon was real. The high temperature in Buffalo that day was 62 degrees F.
About the pictures: I wrote to Jackie Kennedy after President Kennedy's death; this is the response card she mailed to people who sent condolences. The envelope bears my handwritten name and address below her signature rather than a postage stamp, the method used on all these thousands of cards. The second image shows my copies of special memorial issues of Life and Look magazines which were published shortly after the assassination.
Thank you for writing about your memory. I have heard so many over the last few days and they have all been touching. I was in England in my first term at University. I lived in digs and frequently watched our land lady's TV We didn't know much about Kennedy but we were shocked. I think it may have been fleeting and more about the act of assassination of a public figure than anything. It was a cold November night.
Posted by: Jenny | Saturday, November 23, 2013 at 10:34 PM