A State of Nine One One

So, you see, it was with great shock to me when I saw this man’s face, my angel’s face, the face I would never forget, starring back at me on a CNN news report on July 17th, 1999. Matthew, Jonathan, my mother, and I were enjoying a relaxing vacation at a timeshare condo in Orlando, Florida. My mother, an avid news-watcher, had turned on the TV to get the latest news. There, was a huge picture of my angel, and I had to sit down, for my legs grew weak. My angel’s name was John F. Kennedy, Jr., and he had just died, at the young age of thirty-eight, from an airplane crash into the ocean. Indeed, as he had feared, his world had, literally, blown up in his face! I sat there, frozen in my seat, trying to comprehend the man I had met, and known, for a short evening. I realized that he had probably been quite honest with me, as I had no clue who he was, since, I hardly ever kept up with the news. In the past, all the Kennedy faces except Jackie and Jack had just blurred in my mind, so I wasn’t sure what the children looked like now that they had grown. I was told by my grandfather that we were distantly related to the Kennedy’s in Washington, but I never saw the family tree to prove that. I was deeply saddened that a man so young would die such a tragic death. I was doubly saddened by the fact that this was my angel, who had died. I learned enough about John Kennedy, Jr. that night we talked to know he was an extraordinary man -- kind, drop-dead handsome, and irresistible, all rolled up into one fine package. It seemed such a shame for a perfect man like that to die. Even more terrible, his wife and sister-in-law, both young like John, also lost their lives in the crash. It was just a horrible tragedy, and it seemed to substantiate the Kennedy curse. On that terrible day, I had no idea that the fear this man and I had shared, the fear that had come to fruition in John’s life, would also come to fruition in my life. I had not a clue that my world would blow up in my face, just as it had John’s.