What if...?

We all have defining moments in our lives... milestones that occur that we can look back at and say, I remember it like it was yesterday and my life changed because of that event. For most any citizen of the USA who was alive in 1963, the assasination of President John F. Kennedy is one of those moments. Whether you were at work, or at home, or sitting in a classroom at school, the impact of what happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, TX was felt throughout our country.
I grew up in a household that was divided on their politics.  My dad was a staunch Republican who went to bed on election night in 1960 certain that Richard Nixon was a shoe-in as the next President of the United States.  My mother was just as staunchly a Democrat, who believed in JFK like there was no tomorrow without him.
In the fifty years that have followed that tragic, defining day, I have reflected on that event and have often wondered... what if?  What if JFK had lived to rewrite the history of our wonderful country? What if I hadn't witnessed, as a nine year old kid, the reactions of certain people in the aftermath of the assasination, of not only my parents, but of my teachers? What if I had not seen and heard the emotion of one of the most iconic newsmen of my time as he choked up and shed tears on public television for a man who he truly loved and respected?
For days after the death of John Kennedy, we watched, grief-striken, as a young widow in a pink suit blemished by blood stains, stood next to her dead husband's righthand man as he was sworn in as the next President of the United States. We watched as this remarkable family of Kennedy's stood proud and unwavering in their greatness while laying a son, a brother, a husband and a father, to rest.
A few short years later, my family traveled to Dallas, TX to spend Christmas with my oldest brother and his family.  It came as no great surprise that my mother would want to travel the route that JFK took the day he died... Past the Texas Book Depository where Oswald lay in waiting to kill our President... Past the grass knoll that still holds the mystery of what really happened that day... Past Parkland Hospital where people crowded around the emergency room entrance on November 22, 1963, sobbing in disbelief as a doctor announced that our beloved President was dead.
Fifty years later, I sit here writing this as tears cloud my eyes and think... what if?