A New Beginning (#61)

I was a boy when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was our president but I remember the inspiration and hope that surrounded him and how that affected the ones in my life. I was sitting in my third grade class with my classmates and Mrs. Powell our teacher, doing our daily coursework and then the intercom overhead came on. This moment is etched in my memory because of the impact it had on me for the rest of my life. Someone in our school office came over the airwaves and announced that our president had been shot and his injuries were severe. This was one of those moments in my life where everyone in our classroom were equally stunned, silent and scared. My biological father had died about six months earlier so I understood the feeling that was starting to envelope me. My safety and security were being ripped from my life and my hopes and dreams were being shattered. As an eight year old boy I only saw what I could become and that ideal was being destroyed. When I got home from school my mother was crying her eyes out of tears because President Kennedy was dead. Today forty five years later I find that, because of President Obama, I am thinking about what I could become again with the same youthful hopes that I had as a boy. A new beginning is upon me and I wish that it will be upon everyone to see a vision of life, like I see through my eyes, so that we all can have this new beginning.