Finding a Place for Solace, Sanctuary

He was the sexiest man alive, a class act, a nice guy, a rock of stability in a family of raging party animals, the most direct heir to the Kennedy charisma.

But that’s not what the mourners talked about on Thursday, for grief speaks a language all its own.

“We are so very saddened . . .”

“We loved all your family for so many years and our hurt is also so very deep . . .”

“Know you are in our prayers . . .”

“God must have needed angels when he plucked you from the sky. Pray for us . . .”

In ones and twos, they streamed into a parlor at the Joseph P. Reardon Funeral Home in Ventura. Some knelt before a makeshift altar that bore three crucifixes, three rose petals, an American flag folded into a triangle, and a display of photos. Here was John F. Kennedy Jr. kissing the hand of his bride Carolyn; there were John and his wife aboard a motorboat whose hull showed familiar lettering: MS 109 PT.

It was a memorial, of course, to John F. Kennedy Jr., but the memory of another Kennedy was just as vivid. Thirty-six years later, the shot heard in Dallas still resounded.

“It was like his father had died all over again,” said Dora Magana.

Last weekend, Magana’s husband was watching TV and called out to her, something about a plane crash and a Kennedy.

“Did he get out?” she said. “Is he OK? I kept praying and praying and praying. It seemed like my world fell apart.”

Magana was one of the dozens Thursday who penned their sentiments into a register provided by the funeral home. Similar registers are available through Sunday at the Reardon Mortuary in Oxnard, the Ted Mayr Funeral Home in Ventura, and Pierce Bros. Valley Oaks Mortuary in Westlake Village. The books will be sent to the Kennedy and Bessette families.

“He was a truly beautiful and upstanding young man who obviously had a wonderful potential for greatness . . .”

“John--Thank you for showing us what was right about America . . . “

“Only the good die young, John . . .”

Some of the mourners said they felt as if a family member had died.

“My daughter in San Jose felt very bad,” Magana said. “On the phone she said, ‘Oh, Mom, he was so young, such a nice guy. It’s so hard to believe he’s not with us any more.”

I never had the feeling that John F. Kennedy Jr. was with me, any more than I felt a kinship to Princess Di. But millions apparently did, and are dropping by places like Reardon’s to speak the language of grief. Most of the mourners I saw were women, mostly middle-age or older. There was a nun in a light blue habit, and a woman on her lunch hour in a no-nonsense business suit, and another wearing a T-shirt that said: “We be jammin--Maui!”

They sat for a few moments on old-fashioned chairs designed not for relaxing but for something more purposeful like contemplating death. The comforting strains of classical piano cascaded through the room.

“I’m so glad they offered a place of solace and sanctuary,” said Elizabeth Griego. “I wanted to express my condolences and I couldn’t go to New York City.” Griego said she felt “a terrible emptiness and a deep sorrow. He was the son of JFK, and that’s something that runs deep. We’ve been Democrats a long time. To this day, my mother has a portrait of JFK in one corner and Blessed Jesus in the other.”

Alma Melendez wept.

“I voted for his father,” she said. “He was campaigning for office when I was carrying my son. John F. Kennedy Jr. was the same age as my son.”

Her son and his family were visiting her in Santa Paula last weekend. They were preparing to take everyone to Universal Studios for the day, but scrapped their plans when the news flashed across the TV.

“Lost at sea,” she said softly. “It was like something torn out of you.”

Cynics might wonder how so many people could grieve so profoundly for a man they had never known. John F. Kennedy Jr., they would point out, was a lawyer of no great accomplishment and the publisher of a magazine on the verge of folding. He was a well-intended man, a genial man, a charming man, but he was no John F. Kennedy.

But what of it?

Nice guys in public life are even more rare than in the workaday world. Thirty-six years after a little boy’s famous salute, there is something to be said for those who care to return it.

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Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.