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Add My StoryAuthor: Janet Bilhartz
A November sky surrounded us, the gray and black backs of men’s suits, women’s boxy jackets and shirtwaist dresses walling us in. Grasping the edge of Pete’s blue blazer, I followed as my brother wove through the crowd. And as he zigzagged one more time, first past a middle-aged woman stretching her gloved hand into the air, ready to wave at any moment, next in front of a white-haired man who glanced down, then motioned us forward, I saw the empty street in front of Love Field, oddly cleared of all cars in the middle of the day. Caught blocks behind us in a line of traffic on Mockingbird Lane, startled with the realization that President Kennedy’s plane had just landed, Mother had urged us, “Hurry! Excuse yourselves and edge to the front of the crowd. No one will mind; you’re children.”
“Look,” Pete shouted. His back towards me, he bounced on the balls of his feet, waving his hands. “Look!” A line of cars approached, and in the second limousine, long, blue, sleek, I saw pink, which slowly resolved into a hat, then a jacket. Entirely absorbed as I was with my favorite color, Pete startled me with an elbow jab in my ribs, punctuating his command, “Wave!” Obediently raising my hand, I finally noticed the dark hair and smiling face under the hat as well as the bronze-haired man beside, also smiling at the excited crowds. “President Kennedy! President Kennedy!” Pete shouted as he jumped up and down. Then the president looked at us, directly at us. The only children there, in navy blazer and white-collared dress, we knew he did. He looked at us, smiled, and waved, and then he and Mrs. Kennedy were gone, gold and pink against a dark blue car and light blue sky. And Pete and I turned to each other, remembering why we were at Love Field in the middle of a school day.
“Run back to the car,” he ordered. “We’re going to be late.” Worried that our father’s plane from Baltimore had already landed, Mother pulled up to the terminal and once again urged, “Hurry. Go get Daddy.” Her dark eyes and the etchings around her mouth echoed her anxiety and fueled ours. We sped to the gate, arriving in time to watch our father walk down the airplane’s stairs and across the tarmac. Impatiently, we rushed to greet him. “Daddy, we saw the president!” “And Mrs. Kennedy! In a pink suit!” His grim face softened. Smiling, he bent to hug us. “Did you?” Taking the wheel, Daddy drove the car in silence out of Love Field, west on Mockingbird, then north on Harry Hines toward Denton. But an hour later, as he parked on the street in front of Aunt Janet and Uncle Bill’s church, the silence broke. Family members stood in little groups on the sidewalk, many sobbing. Uncle James Marshall wiped his face with his handkerchief, walked over to our car, and leaned in.
“Have you heard? The president’s been shot. He’s dead.” No, we hadn’t heard. When we left Aunt Janet’s funeral service later that afternoon, Mother and I paused by the open coffin. Holding the pink ceramic bowl I had made for her in art class the week before, I looked at Aunt Janet’s still face, no laughing smile to greet me, and I was afraid. Mother gently nudged my arm and whispered, “We should join Daddy and Pete.” So I raised the pink bowl, lifted Aunt Janet’s hand, and placed my gift under it. But when I let go, her hand dropped heavily to her side without any wave of recognition, and I slowly stepped outside under the same blue sky into which President and Mrs. Kennedy had driven only hours before.
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I enjoyed writing this story about my experience on November 22, 1963. And the posting on witnify was easy.