The Kay/Kansas/Kennedy Parts of Life – (letter K of A-Z Challenge)

This was composed for the 2016  A to-Z April Challenge. I thought I’d make my April A-Z challenge some sort of autobiography.

Here is Chapter  ‘K’ :

1963 – The Kay/Kansas/Kennedy Parts of Life

The year I was 12 was life-changing for me. One of my parents’ best friends killed herself while on a hunting trip. She was the kindest and most beautiful and fragile woman I’ve ever known. She was from Kansas – hanging out with the french quarter group. Her husband worked with the space program. She was the first person I ever knew who’d died.  Everyone knew she’d killed herself but the story came to be that ‘she’d had an accident cleaning the rifle’.

A few months later, Kennedy was assassinated.

And that’s the year I decided I was going to be a poet. Poetry was a way I could try making sense of chaos…

Here’s a poem I recently wrote about that year.

Upon Watching A JFK Documentary

I remember when he died
my father cried.
I’d never seen him cry before
– or afterwards –
A whispered adult supper
round the dining table.
We children ate grilled cheese
in another room.
It reminded me
of when Kay killed herself
earlier that year
and everyone said
it was just a hunting accident.
Then we all grew up
and had a nice Thanksgiving dinner.

Ellespeth

image via pixabay