On this day in 1960, the Democratic Party nominated John F. Kennedy for the presidency. On the same day, Joy Davidman Lewis, the wife of C. S. Lewis, died at the age of forty-five.
President Kennedy and C. S. Lewis shared more in common even than this. Three years later, on November 11, 1963, the president was assassinated at the age of forty-six. Less than an hour earlier on the same day, Lewis passed away at the age of sixty-four.
Both were known as “Jack” to their friends and families. Both were connected to Ireland, Kennedy as a descendant through his mother’s side and Lewis by virtue of his birth in Belfast. Both were brilliant communicators, men whose words have lived on across the decades after their deaths.
There’s another dimension to their bond in time. My brother calculated that on the fiftieth anniversary of their deaths, November 11, 2013, I became the same age to the day that my father was when he died.
The death of people we admire shocks us into admitting the fact of mortality for us all. If the president of the United States can be murdered, is anyone truly safe? If one of the greatest apologists in Christian history could die of kidney failure, whose health is secure? If my father could die at the age of fifty-five, why should I be certain of another day of life?
At the same time, the legacy Kennedy and Lewis left in ideas and words reminds us that our influence can live far longer than our bodies. And my father’s courage as he suffered from heart disease for nearly twenty years before he died inspires me to face my challenges with resolve.
Climbing the staircase one step at a time
Kennedy once noted: “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.” Lewis observed: “There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.” My father’s legacy continues…
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