Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: America's First Lady

She was a last link to a certain kind of past, and that is part, but only part, of why we mourn so. Jackie Kennedy symbolized -- she was a connection to a time, to an old America that was more dignified, more private, an America in which standards were higher and clearer and elegance meant something, a time when elegance was a kind of statement, a way of dressing up the world, and so a generous act. She had manners, the kind that remind us that manners spring from a certain moral view -- that you do tribute to the world and the people in it by being kind and showing respect, by sending the note and the flowers, by being loyal, and cheering a friend. She was a living reminder in the age of Oprah that personal dignity is always, still, an option, a choice that is open to you. She was, really, the last aristocrat. Few people get to symbolize a world, but she did, and that world is receding, and we know it and mourn that too.

Those who knew her or watched her from afar groped for the words that could explain their feeling of loss. A friend of hers said, with a soft, sad voice, that what we're losing is what we long for: the old idea of being cultivated. "She had this complex, colorful mind, she loved a turn of phrase. She didn't grow up in front of the TV set, but reading the classics and thinking about them and having thoughts about history. Oh," he said, "we're losing her kind."

I echoed the sentiment to another of her friends, who cut me off. "She wasn't a kind, she was sui generis." And so she was.

America continues in its generational shift; the great ones of the '50s and '60s, big people of a big era, are going, and too often these days we're saying goodbye. But Jackie Kennedy's death is different. No ambivalence clouds her departure, and that leaves us feeling lonely. America this week is a lonelier place.

SHE WAS TOO YOUNG, DESERVED MORE TIME, AND THE FACT THAT SHE DIDN'T GET IT seems like a new level of unfairness. She never saw her husband grow old, and now she won't see her grandchildren grow up.

But just writing those words makes me want to break out of sadness and reach back in time and speak '60s-speak, or at least how the '60s spoke before they turned dark. So I guess I mean I want to speak Kennedyese. I want to say, Aw listen, kid, don't be glum. What a life she had.

She herself said something like this to a friend, in a conversation just months ago, when she first knew she was sick. She told him she was optimistic and hoped to live 20 more years. "But even if I have only five years, so what, I've had a great run."

They said it was a life of glamour, but it was really a life of splendor. I want to say, Listen, kid, buck up, don't be blue -- the thing about this woman and her life is that she was a patriot, who all by herself one terrible weekend lifted and braced the heart of a nation.