I was sitting in class in Demarest Elementary School. My teacher was called out of the room and we sat quietly waiting for her return. We heard her voice in the hallway, talking to the Principal. I wondered who was in trouble. Then the teacher walked back in and, looking utterly shaken, she informed us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. I was terrified, not because of the notion that JFK was shot–I was seven years old and somehow the concept seemed very far away–but because our teacher was fighting back tears and wasn’t entirely succeeding. I had never in my life seen an adult cry. I thought that was something that only kids did; that when you grew up, you outgrew crying somehow.
I learned otherwise that day. When I came home, my mother was crying, and when my father got back in that evening, even his eyes looked red rimmed.
Adults cried. Who knew?
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