By Jan Yager*

*Copyright © 1999 by Jan Yager, Ph.D. Excerpted from CREATIVE MOURNING: Poems by Jan Yager, Fred Yager, Priscilla Orr, and Seth Alan Barkas (Hannacroix Creek Books, 2000). [Jan Yager is the author of numerous books including Friendshifts: The Power of Friendship and How It Shapes our Lives, Hannacroix Creek Books, 1997; 2nd edition, 1999.Fred Yager is co-author of Untimely Death:A Novel. Priscilla Orr is author of Jugglers and Tides: Poems. The late Seth Alan Barkas is author of In the Great Together: Plays (Hannacroix Creek Books, in preparation).]

We’ll always remember your brave salute

So mature

So powerful

So telling

When your father, the beloved late President Kennedy,

Was felled by an assassin’s bullet

That dark day in November 1963.

It is etched in our minds

It is engraved in our memories

A brave little boy

Forced to deal with loss and fame

So young

So soon.

But outside the eyes of the public

You grew up

And suddenly you were a heart throb to so many

So handsome

So successful

So witty

So self-deprecating

The hope of so many generations.

A son of the City

Tribeca and New York claimed you

Massachusetts was a part of you too

But suddenly a cruel twist of fate

A doomed flight

A downed plane

And three lives are lost.

Three lives of promise

Three lives of hope

The young man whom I had hoped would someday follow

In your father’s footsteps

To provide us with a President to emulate

To admire

To worship

The beautiful wife you loved

With whom we all hoped you would someday have children

To pass on your legacy.

Your sister-in-law

A bright light in investment banking

With a romantic future

Still in the making.

In an instant

All gone.

The hopes

The dreams

The jokes

The humor

The history

The present

The future.

I mourn your death, John F. Kennedy Jr.,

and the loss of your wife and sister-in-law.

Although I did not know you personally

You were and always will be part of my world.

A world diminished because you three

Are no longer part of it.

I will miss hearing about you

I will miss seeing what you are up to

The fashion that your wife was wearing

The causes you were championing.

Just as I miss Princess Diana

And all she meant to the world

I will miss you three,

Struck down so young, still in your prime.

There is no lesson we can learn from this

Except to cherish each moment

To always let those we love know of our love

To follow our dreams

And feel the feelings

Make the connections

With our family

Our friends

Our work

Our dreams.

You touched our lives with your life

You have jolted and shocked us in your death

For you seemed larger than life

You seemed able to overcome anything and everything

You were so poised when your beloved Mother Jacqueline

Succumbed to cancer

We will never know how you would have aged

How you would have changed

What you might have done

What might have been for

A page in history has ended.

John, John,

I salute you

As you find the eternal peace with your loved ones

That you deserve.

July 21, 1999