All Good Things, by Eileen Cerne

My father was a man who had a saying for every occasion. One we heard often was “all good things must come to an end.” He never said this at the beginning of an event, only at the end when we were saddened by a party, a picnic, or some special occasion coming to a close. These words were said, I have come to realize, not to console but rather to prepare us for the painful losses that lie in the path of all of us as we progress through life.

And so, on a gray, mid-autumn day, as my sister and I, filled with excitement, set out on our first quest to encounter someone famous, he simply smiled and told us to be careful. The date was November 6, 1960, two days before the presidential election. The famous person was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Our admiration for him had been growing steadily from the first time we heard of him. His Irish Catholic heritage was shared by us and predisposed us to regard his aspirations to our nation’s highest office as courageous. He had become our hero and seeing him in person would be a dream come true.

We left home early, hoping to secure a good viewing location. We boarded the bus to Journal Square, a transportation hub in Jersey City, New Jersey, where large gatherings often took place. The twenty-minute ride seemed to last forever. When we finally arrived, we waited impatiently for the door to open as we looked with dismay at the mass of people who had arrived before us.

We scrambled down the steps, two skinny girls in winter coats, tumbling into the largest crowd we had ever encountered. The chill in the air would not matter. The body heat of thousands would keep us warm.

Our first strategy had failed miserably. As we looked across the sea of people the stage was barely visible, a speck on the horizon. Getting close to it was going to be a challenge. At 15 and 11 we were the only non-voting age individuals in sight. Our age and size would work to our advantage.

My sister, though younger, took the lead expertly weaving through the crowd. I followed murmuring “excuse me, thank you, sorry” as we slipped through each chink in the wall of people. There was electricity in the air. The exuberance of the crowd amplified our excitement. A light rain began to fall. Undaunted, we continued our push to the front. Some of the less committed decided to leave. This kept the crowd fluid, creating new gaps through which we quickly passed.

And then we were there, not just close to the stage, but in the front row on the left side. The stairs leading up to the dais were directly before us. This meant JFK would pass right by us as he ascended the steps. Now, all we had to do was wait.

As we stood there we noticed a change in the atmosphere. JFK was late and the crowd’s anticipation had transformed into restlessness. We, too, had a shift in mood. This late arrival had allowed us the time to achieve our prime location. For the first time, we noticed daylight was waning and we were getting soaked by the rain. We began to worry that we might be in trouble if we arrived home too late. The thought of leaving was almost too much to contemplate. As we agonized about whether we should stay or depart a shout went up from the crowd followed by the sound of motorcycles as the motorcade arrived.

Moments later a group of men headed to the stage with John Kennedy in the center. As they climbed the stairs I reached out and touched his coat. My bolder sister grabbed his hand and shook it.

Dazzled by our good fortune, we forgot our concerns about parental displeasure. We were spellbound throughout the speech. I suspect it was a standard stump speech personalized

enough to make it seem designed just for us. We didn’t care if he had given it a thousand times. We loved it and so did the crowd.

We arrived home bursting with excitement, proclaiming we would never wash the hands that had touched his coat and shaken his hand. Our enthusiasm probably spared us punishment as our parents had been worried about our prolonged absence.

We spent the next few days in a state of acute anxiety as we waited for the election to take place and results announced.

On the morning of November 9,1960, we learned that Richard Nixon had conceded. John Kennedy had won and we had indeed been in the presence of the man who would be the thirty-fifth president of the United States.

For the next three years we followed politics and world affairs with a new-found interest. We watched every news conference, knew all the cabinet members' names and backgrounds, knew every Kennedy family member by name and sight. We reveled in every achievement, suffered from every misstep and never ceased to be loyal. He was our hero, our inspiration, a man who made us proud to be American.

And then came another day in November - Friday, November 22, 1963. I was away from home, a college freshman, so I didn’t have my sister or my parents to share in my grief. I was in the chemistry lab when someone burst into the room to deliver the devastating news. The president had been shot. Class ended abruptly and everyone rushed to the student center. As we gathered around the television we soon heard that the wounds were fatal and Kennedy had died. For the rest of that day, and all of the next day, my friends and I sat in our housemother’s room watching the coverage, crying with each other and trying to understand how such a thing could happen. The leader we all loved was gone, his life stolen from him and from us by the single act of a single man. The line outside the dorm phones was long as everyone called home. It was so hard for all of us to cope with such tragedy without family.

And then, on another Sunday, I was on a bus again. This time I rode with friends. This ride was a longer one, from Emmitsburg, Maryland to Washington D.C. It held none of the delight my sister and I had experienced three years earlier. This ride was taken to say goodbye to the man who provided so much inspiration and hope for our nation.

As the bus entered the parking area near the Washington Monument I looked out at a sea of humanity once again. As we slowly exited the bus we joined the 300,000 people who had, like us, converged on our nation’s capital. United in mourning we approached Pennsylvania Avenue to await the passage of the caisson carrying our president from the White House to the Capitol where he would lie in state.

The silence of the crowd was more powerful than any spoken words could be. Instead of a motorcade announcing JFK’s arrival we heard muffled drum beats and the clacking of horses’ hooves. Soldiers marching looked straight ahead, many with tears streaming from their eyes. In these moments we were all bound together by a shared grief. As the caisson passed one could hear a collective intake of breath by those lining the streets.

One final shock remained. As we stood there absorbing the solemnity and tragedy of this moment murmurs rose within the crowd. People were sharing the news that, even as the caisson processed, the assassin himself had been shot and killed. Who could make sense of any of this?

We returned to our bus which carried us back to campus. There our vigil continued until all ceremonies including the burial were completed. The Kennedy presidency was over. My father was right. All good things must come to an end.