I Saw Caroline Kennedy on the Dave Letterman Show

I saw Caroline Kennedy on the Dave Letterman show.

She carried herself with approachability and dignity as befitting the daughter of American royalty.

Her father’s quickness came through with clever repartee. Sometimes Dave didn’t know what was coming.

He took it well and did homage to the memory. No snotty-ness as he is sometimes known to do so well.  Respect.  She has been through so much.  Be sensitive, Dave.  Be careful.

She spoke of the book she has written about her mother’s taped memoirs.

You could just tell that she had been really close to her Mummy, as she called her.

When Dave spoke of her father, she would respectfully but insistently turn the talk to Mummy, Mummy behind the always presentable façade, the witty, the spontaneous Jacqueline, that’s line not lin as in Jack-a-line like Caro-line not lin, thank you very much. Mummy Jack-a-line.

She spoke of her brother when asked and she listed his naughty but nice qualities. She kept a safe distance between her and her beautiful, mischievous brother before the public eye.

Dave wanted to talk about the events, the turning points, the things that meant so much to him as a teen when her father was killed.

She was courteous.  She was her mother’s daughter.

She spoke of the dead — her father, her Mummy, her brother.

At one point, she alluded to the fact that they were not there. She spoke very softly; you could hardly hear.

They could have been.  They all could have been.  They all could have been around for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

They wouldn’t have been that old, especially her brother John. People live a lot longer than the rest of her immediate family — did.

I thought of her uncles, dead, too. Others in the family now dead, by virtue of age.

I wondered about the lines in her face, premature for someone in her early fifties

and what she thought of when she walked off stage away from the cheers and clapping and all alone got into the long, black car which took her home.