Growing Up in Camelot's Ashes

Jordana Willner

Originally published San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, July 20, 1999

MY PARENTS WATCHED the news of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane crash, and they cried. Not in the intellectually stricken way they reacted to the Kosovars' struggle, nor with the frustration they felt during the Persian Gulf War or the TWA flight 800 disaster. Not even with the sorrow that struck when Princess Diana died. Their pain was personal, flowing from old wounds newly aggravated. When my mother questioned how much more ``they'' could take, she was referring to the Kennedy family, the nation and to herself.

Watching my parents mourn, I stood apart from this bond they apparently share with the nation. Despite nearly 26 years in my parents' lives, I can neither relate to nor understand their decades-old connection with the lives and losses of the Kennedys. In the modern context of my entirely post-Watergate life, ``Kennedy'' is an elusive and anachronistic concept. I cannot, as a product of 1980s and '90s political and social cynicism, understand the hope -- and subsequent pain of loss -- that created and sustained America's Camelot. In an age of school violence, impeachment, drugs, gangs, AIDS and a president best known as a unabashed liar, I am not imaginative enough to believe in a nation that, just a generation ago, believed in fairy tales.

I know my history. I know the tragedies that have befallen the Kennedys. I know that Caroline Kennedy is now the sole surviving member of her once-idolized nuclear family. I understand the physical place held by the Kennedys in 20th century America. But it is the emotional tie between average Americans and this nearly royal family that keeps me asking: What is a Kennedy? And who was this Kennedy that his very life and death should inspire a national dirge?

They tell me: He was a child who grew up under the nation's collective watch. But I ask: Would the deaths of Lisa Marie Presley or the Olsen twins, while tragic, incite such raw emotions? He was an offspring of a political dynasty. But would similar news of a Bush son get live, uninterrupted coverage all week end long? He was the child of a beloved politician. Yet not even a Playboy spread moved Americans to take much notice of President Reagan's daughter Patti. He was a rich and privileged man. But would anyone cry alone in their kitchen over a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs aviation tragedy? He was a much-photographed heartthrob. But while deceased hunks River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain have been heartily eulogized, they hardly garnered cross-country mourning. He was a celebrity who died tragically. Yet John Denver was a national treasure also lost to his own piloting, and we accepted his passing with resignation to the sorrows of life.

John F. Kennedy Jr. was all this and more, because Kennedys are seen as so much greater than the sum of their parts. But such loyal national fascination could not hatch in my own generation, where the expectation of wrongdoing and scandal replace the awe once associated with those of privilege and power. In the 1960s, images were built and revered, but in 1999, I feel lucky when I can dare to hope that a political or social leader won't fall drastically short of all my expectations.

My parents' tears reveal that Americans once cared enough to hope for the best. That I never learned how speaks volumes about what has been lost, and I can't help thinking that a little Kennedy in my generation might have gone a long way toward discouraging apathy-raising expectations, and encouraging hope. I might not share my parents' connection with the Kennedys, but the weekend's loss of life and what it reveals about the world I've grown up in is enough to make me cry.

--Jordana Willner wrote a monthly "Next Generation" column for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999, 2000, and 2001