A Teenager's Anguish

Luci Baines Johnson

The nation is remembering the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. However, for Luci Baines Johns--the 16 yr old daughter of Vice President Johnson--her memory is an everyday occurrence. She was the Cathedral School when somebody came into her Spanish Class and said that the President had been shot. From that time on, Luci remembered nobody asking her about her parents.  Then the secret service agent showed up--one that she knew very well. When she saw him coming, she suspected the worst and took off running. Once he caught up with her, Luci remembers him saying that he was "so sorry, so very sorry...." According to her report, he did not tell her that her parents were alight.  Fortunately, before school was dismissed, she was told that her parents were alright.  As soon as her mother returned, she went straight to Luci to comfort her.  That's the key in her recollection.  The one who loved her the most also came to her just as soon as the plane returned from Dallas. 

Amidst that whole event, who had time to think of a teenager--but her mother who went to her side immediately.  We may have experienced our own traumas.  There is no forgetting them.  But who do we remember was there for us, going through it with us, and just being there? 

That was God's promise.  The world is not fair.  It is full of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But he promises to walk through whatever valley of the shadows of death that we must cross.  None of us can rewrite our person stories. What we can do, however, is to retell them and remember who was there for us...and the One who was there us in those who walked with us.