RFK

Fortieth anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s assassination. Like most Americans my age, I’ll never forget that day. It’s seared into my memory as an eternal event, one of those events by which I mark off the time of my life. JFK’s assassination. MLK’s assassination. RFK’s assassination. But for RFK, a special place. In those two days after he was shot, before he succumbed, I’d written on my sneakers “pray for Bobby.” (I think it was the first thing I ever wrote on my sneakers. Later I’d write “acid queen” after the Who song from Tommy.) Many years later when I went to Washington for my first time as an adult I visited Arlington National Cemetery. I thought I wanted to see John F. Kennedy’s grave and we walked up the hill to the enormous cut out that was laid with granite marking his grave and the graves of his two infant children. The eternal flame floated invisibly above the gas spigot, identifiable only by the vapor curling the air. I was impressed. I summoned my memory of Black Jack and his backwards boots high stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue. I recalled the feeling of having been shocked. But I was not moved. Then I walked a few steps away down the path to Robert Kennedy’s grave. And as I saw the small pool, the simple white cross, and the green hill climbing up behind it I began to weep. Carved in the granite behind the water was a quote from Aeschylus that has been with me since. “In our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”