October 1962: my sister and I sat with our mother listening to the news. President Kennedy played “ring around an island†blockading Cuba. In the end, Russia dismantled the missiles.
June 1963: President Kennedy stated “. . . our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.â€
November 1963: news of his assassination. The nuns crossed themselves and my classmates and I went to our knees to recite the rosary.
John-John saluted.
Our world’s future changed. We changed – became more mortal.
VV’s 100 Word Challenge was CRISIS. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a vivid memory of mine. I was 12 that October. My mother and father had gone through their own crisis carrying my younger sister and me along with them. We survived that scary time and the larger “we” survived the larger scary time. Life changed. We became.