It’s twenty-five years since John and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy died in that senseless plane crash along with her older sister Lauren.
Like when his father died, you can’t help remembering where you were. I was with my friend Angela when we heard their plane was missing.
Imagine Mama Corleone and Connie at the kitchen table listening to the radio each making the sign of the cross.
As Italians, we instinctively both knew that plane wasn’t sailing through the clouds like a publicity stunt as everyone hoped.
I remember with clarity Angela waving her hand saying, “When will those Kennedys learn?” Never, as we well know, hubris in their DNA like having the same blood type.
I loved and mourned John the same as everyone. How could I not remembering that salute when his father’s coffin went by on its solemn caisson. But I’ll admit, all these years later, being angry at his careless arrogance, inbred or not.
He just had a cast removed from his left ankle the day before told by his doctor, he shouldn’t drive let alone fly a plane, and clearly not one he wasn’t familiar with.
Toss in bad weather, so bad the seasoned pilot scheduled to accompany him refused, insisting it was too dangerous. Yet he flew anyway, despite all the risks.
We all know the story so I won’t repeat it, but what I still find haunting is that his wife didn’t want to go to his cousin Rory’s wedding to begin with.
They were having a rough patch in their marriage and she presciently had a bad feeling about it all.
Carolyn was beautiful and independent when they met, and when things between them got serious her mother, knowing her daughter all too well told her, she could never be happy living in such a fish bowl.
But like Diana Spencer, she couldn’t let go of her Prince.
It was her sister who convinced her to go, that they’d have such a nice time on the way there.
No, I don’t blame Lauren since as fate would have it, their time on earth had come to an end. But when you kick fate out of the way renaming it stupidity, you think, why couldn’t Carolyn who was no push-over, just say no.
No is a complete sentence helping to curtail one’s people-pleasing that rarely benefits the pleaser, but alas, Carolyn couldn’t say no to her sister.
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr died this day, July 16, 1999 both 33 years-old along with her sister, Lauren Bessette, who was 34. ![]()
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To say it’s a shame doesn’t do it justice.
Recommended reading:
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Once Upon A Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Elizabeth Beller (2024)
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The Day John Died, Christopher Anderson (2000)
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