the moment with mom

The first real clear memory I have of my mother was when I was four. I was looking at the television and saw horses and soldiers coming at me very slowly. I looked at Mom and she was laying prone on the couch with her face buried in her right hand. She was crying and I was confused. Was I making her cry? I looked back at the television and realized what was on TV was making her cry. I went over and hugged her leg. She put her arm around me. The event on television was Jack Kennedy’s funeral procession.

Jane Chandler, my mother, and myself

Mom told me recently that I watched all of television coverage on President Kennedy’s death. I can’t recall watching the other television news items, just that moment with Mom.

One moment is all it takes to make a memory. In Mom's sorrow that day, I realized an understanding. An understanding of feelings, without and within. This came to be monumental. Perhaps difficult to describe, but nonetheless all around me.

I was only four but I had realized that the world had many places and that they aren't as foreign as in the past.

The moment with Mom was poignant. The total spectrum of that event didn't come totally into view then, but as I grew older my vision became more clear.