On this day, December 8, 1980 at this very time-7:47 am- my life hadn't changed yet.
I was a typical 16 year old who had never experienced a significant emotional event. You see, those of us born at the tail end of the Baby Boom Generation-the 'Baby Burps' as we're sometimes called-don't remember the day John Kennedy died (I wasn't even born yet). We don't remember Bobby Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr. I was 5 when my uncle Dan came home from Vietnam. Too young for it to have made much difference in my life. Elvis? Pfft. Just a fat old guy who died on the toilet.
But John Lennon? John Lennon had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember.
My older sister Kelly turned me on to the Beatles when I was 6 years old. It was 1970 and by then they had already broken up. It didn't matter. I was obsessed. My junior high years were spent listening to every record, memorizing every single line in every single movie-yes, even Magical Mystery Tour-reading every book and plastering posters on my bedroom wall. Paul was my favorite Beatle. But John was a close second. It wasn't always a love fest between John and me. I was mortified when I first saw a picture of John and Yoko naked on the 'Two Virgins' album cover. I was much younger than him and didn't understand all of his views and his methods of expressing them.
By October 1980 it seemed that both John and I had grown up. I was 16, had my driver's license and a boyfriend. John was 40, had settled down and was a devoted husband and father. He released 'Double Fantasy', and '(Just Like) Starting Over' was always on the radio. Life was good for John and me and all was forgiven.
He himself acknowledged this turning point in his life. On December 8th, 1980 John told an interviewer, "Here I am now, how are you? How's your relationship going? Did you get through it all? Weren't the '70s a drag? Let's try and make the '80s good". That's the John I knew and loved. Always the optimist.
On this day, December 8, 1980 at this very time-7:58 am- my life hadn't changed yet.
It was when I woke on December 9, 1980 that my life changed forever.
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