One year after the tragic assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, his widow, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, poured her grief into a personal essay published in Look magazine. This reflection, written as the one-year anniversary of his death approached, offers a moving glimpse into her internal struggle to accept a reality that was once “unthinkable.”
At the top of the page, she wrote the devastating, self-aware admission: “I should have known that it was asking too much to dream that I might have grown old with him.” The essay, written by a woman learning to live without the love of her life, reveals the pain of constant memory. She shares that on major family days, like his birthday, an anniversary, or even “watching his children running to sea,” she was haunted by the knowledge: “But this day last year was his last to see that.” The memory of his vitality made his passing seem fragile: “He was so full of love and life on all those days. He seems so vulnerable now, when you think that each one was a last time.”
Jackie recognized that the final anniversary of the tragedy would arrive “as inexorably as it did last year. But expected this time.” She noted how the passage of time had forced change upon those left behind. “It will find some of us different people than we were a year ago. Learning to accept what was unthinkable when he was alive, changes you.” Facing the loss, she declared, “I don’t think there is any consolation. What was lost cannot be replaced.”
A letter she received that winter provided a crucial shift in perspective. Written by an unknown admirer who loved President Kennedy, but who had never known him, the letter suggested that heroes appear precisely when hope fades: “The hero comes when he is needed. When our belief gets pale and weak, there comes a man out of that need who is shining _ and everyone living reflects a little of that light _ and stores some up against the time when he is gone.”
This letter led Jackie to conclude that she had underestimated the fragility of their extraordinary life together. “Now I think that I should have known that he was magic all along. I did know it _ but I should have guessed it could not last. I should have known that it was asking too much to dream that I might have grown old with him and see our children grow up together.” She pondered the solemn finality of his death, concluding that he would have preferred to be a man, but he became a legend instead.
Five years after the assassination, Jackie made the controversial decision to marry Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. The marriage, characterized by separate lives and strained by Onassis’s relationship with opera singer Maria Callas, ended upon his death. Jackie then began a partnership with Maurice Tempelsman until her passing in 1994.
The final years of Jackie Kennedy Onassis were defined by her resilience and ability to navigate through profound grief and adversity. The legacy she leaves behind is one of strength, grace, and unwavering love.
Peace Nero is a writer and blogger who loves to explore different topics of self-development. She shares her personal experiences in order to help people discover their true purpose in life.