November 1963

I can still see where I was forty seven years ago today as if it was a video on YouTube. I remember walking home after we were all dismissed from school, and seeing neighbors crying in their driveways, and out in front of their homes.  Dressed in housecoats, most with their hair in curlers, they were in the uniform of the times, but their sadness was timeless.  JFK was gone.  It was also one week, to the day, from when my mother died suddenly.

From Friday to Friday,  it was a very bad week.

As we heal, we grow, and learn from tragedy.  We experienced something that was devastating emotionally, and to not recover, and put the raw energy of sadness to work to better ourselves would be not only be a shame, but a waste.

As a nation, we went in directions we may not have gone if JFK had lived that day on November 22, 1963.  Some good, some could have been chosen better.  The same could be said happened to me as a result of my mothers death on November 15th.  Some life choices I would never have made, or even thought of if I had not experienced what I did.  Most good, some could have been chosen better.

November 1963 was one of those key times in my life that I chose to grow from.  I don't think I consciously chose to, but rather did so as a reaction to what I was feeling back then.

We are the some total of our life experiences, both the tragic, and the good .  How we choose to be affected by each one determines who we become,  and who we are.