We assigned a writing prompt to the women in our SPARC Writing for Women class, due this week, on the topic, “Who Would You Most Want to Have Dinner with, and Why?” In the spirit of running a workshop, the other leader and I will be sharing our own efforts – both to show writing styles and to offer something of ourselves and our concerns. So, my subject is….Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late president, John F. Kennedy, and his fashion icon wife, Jackie; and handsome, maybe reckless younger brother, John-John. That Caroline Kennedy.

I wouldn’t invite her to dinner here at home – I’m not much of a cook and it’s a lot to ask my husband, Donald. I suppose we’d meet in Manhattan, where she lives with her husband and three children – someplace nice, discrete, where the staff would not make a fuss. And, being two middle-aged ladies, we’d likely order a healthy lunch, salad perhaps, and a glass of wine if we’re not driving.

Caroline Kennedy is about the same age as I am, from a French and Irish Catholic background, a big family with many cousins and aunts and uncles — and she lost her father young, as I did.  A year apart. Kennedy was 42, my father 39; we girls were each around 6.  Both men were promising sons of large families who pinned a lot of hope and expectation on them. Both Navy officers. Both of their fathers had been larger than life figures who ran businesses and were involved with politics – my grandfather locally. Both patriarchs had a deep respect for education and married women who were committed to family advancement.

Our fathers’ deaths, while very different, were sudden and unexpected: a gunshot wound; a fast moving cancer. We both had dark, slim, stylish mothers who bore their grief quietly, building a reserve that was almost impenetrable. Caroline, of course, remained rich, famous and in the limelight most of her life, while my family’s fortunes declined for some time after my father died. Her father’s death was a shock to my family, and to my father – the violence and the loss of hope in a decade that grew increasingly turbulent.

Then there are the other, almost-crossed paths: her schooling at Concord Academy, not ten minutes from where I live; a wedding at a small church in Centerville, MA, where a cousin of mine married. Vacations on Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard. The overlapping years in New York; the many different writing and arts-related jobs. She didn’t change her name after marriage, and neither did I.

For Caroline Kennedy, money and fame did not hold off tragedy, but perhaps invited it. Many people have suffered and lost, but not so many in the public eye. She alone is left of her closest family. Gone mother; father; stillborn sister; baby brother, Patrick; beloved brother, John, Jr.; two uncles; several cousins – tragically, before their time.  I would like to know how she lives with the loss and grief, for which success was no insurance. Who does she talk to of her fears and sorrow?  What does she tell her children?  Can she be friends with anyone who hasn’t had the kind of experiences she has?  How does she get up in the morning? Is there any medicine or self-help practices that help her cope? What gives her pleasure and something to look forward to?  What does she hope for?  And what sense does she make of all that has happened in her life?  Does she believe in God or in the Kennedy curse? 

I think of her, Caroline Kennedy, from time to time, with a pang in my heart. I’m drawn to her picture as a little girl in the White House, wholesome, natural, loved.  I admire that she is raising a family and still goes out in public on occasion to speak for things she supports. I’d like to tell her how much I feel for her; I think we’d have a lot to talk about.