Sweet Caroline

I feel Neil Diamond.

Like most people, old film and video footage of JFK is part of my historical consciousness. Jackie too. After them, John Jr. appeared in People often enough as well.

I can't remember when I saw Caroline Kennedy for the first time. It was probably on TV.

I'm the only person in my family who can't play an instrument... but if I could, I would've tried to write a song too. There's something to be said about the woman you'll never know who touches you like that.

Touching me, touching you... but anyway...

You don't see her around much. She wasn't the kid saluting her father's coffin in pictures, or the one playing under his desk.

I don't think John Jr. was a lightweight even if I think I would've had an easier time than he did passing the bar. But Caroline always struck me as a more serious human being.

I went to college surrounded by kids from rich and powerful families. Many of them reach adulthood wondering why everybody can't succeed as easily as they do.

In Caroline, I see someone who doesn't apologize for her privilege, but who is absolutely aware of it. She expects not more of what she was given, but to fulfill the social debt that comes with it.

Among the few times we do see her in public, is when she speaks at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies. She has an awkward gait that is visible when she walks in a gown, kinda like female athletes at the ESPYs. It is the only visible indication of her discomfort with being America's daughter.

But she lives it with a quiet dignity that freezes her face in time. Is she in her fifties? Is she really?

I've always thought that I don't get to see her on television often enough. But that's likely why her pedestal is so high.

The point I wanted to make is this: I'm not an emotional person. I haven't shed a tear for my father even though I miss him dearly and often.

So when Caroline wrote this, it came closest to bringing me to tears. Read it carefully. It's by a little girl who lost a father she never really knew.

It's about when the little girl found him again.

It got me. I have to say, it got me.