Tomorrow, it will be forty years since the death of Robert Kennedy, one day after he was shot in the early morning hours at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles as he walked in a kitchen passageway on his way out of the hotel ballroom.
On June 5th, 1968, I woke up, put on my radio, and just cried. I was scheduled to spend half a day in middle school, and half a day at St. Anne's, the local Roman Catholic church, prepping for my confirmation the next day. I remember a lot of people seemed to be optimistic that Bobby was hanging on, that he might recover from the shooting. And that we were already numb from the shooting of MLK just eight weeks before.
When I got up on the morning of the 6th, and heard the news, I didn't have time to really let it sink in. I was thirteen, the same age my older daughter is now, and I knew that I had a long day ahead of me, and I was nervous that the Archbishop was doing our ceremony, and I was not a studious Catholic. I remember getting to St. Anne's for the day long preparations. The nuns marched us into the church without anyone talking, and they asked us to pray. Some of them were crying, some of them looked like they had been crying, and all of us, kids and adults, were in shock. I know I was. I remember looking up for a moment, and seeing how many of my friends had their heads bowed - a church full of teenagers, and the only sound was the whispers of prayers.
My parents were admirers of his. His running for President held such hope that he had a true vision to get us out of that war, and to get us to be a fairer, more caring nation.
I remember thinking that how could anyone shoot a man like that, and at the same time, thinking that, like Martin, the good, and the honest, and the caring were now fair game in a land that put weapons and the right to own them so far ahead of the precious gift of such men among us. Too many times since, I have been reminded of the price we have paid, and continue to pay, for the worship of handguns and the refusal of have some national sanity to control the ownership of things that have no other purpose than to kill human beings. But back in 1968, even after the murder of his brother, the murder of Martin Luther King, the mass insanity that must have these things to own was so ingrained in our society, it seemed it would never be rooted out, and we would continue to pay the price for it, in the blood of public figures and private citizens, as we have.
I have never, never felt the same about politics or my own country since that day. At the mass before my confirmation, the Archbishop asked us to think about dedicating ourselves to the ideals that Robert Kennedy had for this nation. That has resonated within me ever since. As has the question about how much different this nation and the world would have been if he had missed that appointment with death and continued on his path to the Presidency. Imagine if Nixon had never been elected. If the upheavals that tore apart the US in the time he was in office had never happened. If Kent State had not happened. Or Woodstock. If a Kennedy had been President at the time of Bangala Desh, and the first inklings of the oil crisis...
"Some men see things as they are, and ask 'Why?'", as Teddy said at his wake in St. Patrick's, "He dreamed things that never were and said 'Why not?'"
Forty years later, we are still asking that question. And it's damn time we demand an answer of our own government. It is the least we can do in his memory.
