Unfinished Stories: JFK Jr. & Reflections at Thirty-Eight

On July 16, 2024, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn, and her sister, Lauren Bessette, passed with a few tributes and retrospectives. News outlets revisited the story, offering reflections on the unfinished life of a man once called “America’s Prince.” For me, the date carried an added weight. July 16, 1999, was also my thirteenth birthday.

I do not remember the birthday itself. What I remember is learning the next evening that Kennedy’s plane had disappeared. The news was everywhere, every channel replaying the same footage and repeating the same uncertain words. At thirteen, I clung to the hope that he and his passengers were waiting somewhere to be rescued. But as the hours stretched into days, hope gave way to silence, and the truth settled in. All three were gone.

At the time, I did not understand the depth of the grief. My peers were silent. The adults around me carried on. The loss felt distant, like something sad but far removed from my world. I knew little about John Jr. himself, except that he was the son of a famous president and a fixture on magazine covers at the supermarket checkout line. I even wondered if he might run for president one day. But the tragedy did not pierce me then in the way it does now.

This summer, I returned to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. I did not take photos or linger over artifacts. Instead, I sat quietly in the Pavilion, looking out at the ocean, and let my mind wander. John F. Kennedy Jr. was thirty-eight when he died. I am thirty-eight now. He was known around the world. I am known by almost no one. At first, I struggled to see what, if anything, we shared. Then I realized that what binds us is not fame but the unfinished nature of our stories.

Kennedy Jr.’s life ended mid-sentence. He left no gravesite, only ashes scattered into the Atlantic. My connection to him has always been from afar, shaped by photographs, interviews, and the collective memory of a nation. I have crossed paths with some of his relatives, including Jean Kennedy Smith, Joe Kennedy III, and Mark Shriver, but I never asked them about him. It would have felt intrusive, as though their private memories could be distilled into a casual answer.

When I look back now at old interviews, I notice something I missed as a teenager, a sadness in his eyes. In one conversation with Larry King, the host remarked, “So, it’s good to be a son of a legend.” Kennedy’s face tightened almost imperceptibly before he replied, “I mean, it’s complicated and makes for a rich and complicated life, so… but that’s, I think, the puzzle to figure out in my life.” It was not the voice of a man basking in a compliment, but of someone carrying the weight of expectation, loss, and constant scrutiny.

And now here I stand, the same age he was when he died. At thirteen, thirty-eight seemed impossibly old, an age when I assumed people had already become who they were meant to be. Living it now, I know better. There are still ambitions unrealized, questions unanswered, and chapters unwritten. I wonder if he felt the same.

His story ended before it could find resolution. Mine, for now, continues. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place.” I would like that too. But more than length, I want my life to carry meaning. Kennedy Jr. may not have had time to write the full story he hoped to, but he seemed determined to contribute something worthwhile. That is what I want as well.

Being the same age he was when his life ended forces me to see time differently. It reminds me that years are never guaranteed and that the distance between a wish and a legacy is measured by action, by what we choose to do while we still can. So I will keep writing my story while I can, not only in words but in the quiet ways I move through each day, the kindness I offer, the curiosity I keep alive, the courage I try to show when it matters. One day, my story too will reach its final line. When it does, I hope it reads as a life lived with heart and purpose.

We are all, in the end, unfinished stories, written in the time we are given and carried forward by those who remember us.

To conclude this entry, I want to close with John F. Kennedy Jr.’s own words from an interview with Larry King, words that reveal the complexity of his life and the way he carried the weight of history and family:

KING: Now, when you look at him, John, you look at your father, and you must see him all the time. I mean, you see him everywhere. You see him in tapes and visions, and on cameras and at Democratic Conventions. He is everywhere. You did not know him, know him, right? How do you look at him? Is he my father? A president? A great man? My family? What is the association?

KENNEDY: I think it is complicated. And I think that you see it in a variety of ways. I mean, I understand that my father is part of the mythology of this country, and he was also a very compelling political figure. And I think, you know, you can certainly, certainly he was aware, himself, of the opportunities for politics to be both fun and serious. And that is one of the things that we have tried to, that mix. I mean, if there is, you know, bits and pieces of family history which go into creating something, you know, on my end, that is part of it.