I Never Got to Say Goodbye: A Memoir

Title: I Never Got to Say Goodbye: A Memoir
Author(s) Philip Kamaras

Two funerals. Two flags. Two very different worlds. 

In 1963, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy united a country in a singular, televised moment of mourning, as his flag-draped coffin was carried by horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol.

A year later, a small Jewish family in Springfield, Massachusetts, faced their own catastrophe when their patriarch, Jacob, died in his easy chair during the evening news.

There was no national broadcast for the WWII vet who started as a clothier and after the war sold whatever he could to provide for his family. There was no photographer present at the graveside to capture the moment his son received the burial flag.The task of raising the two children fell solely to their mother—a brave immigrant who worked her entire adult life as a bookkeeper.

In this hauntingly honest memoir, author Philip Kamaras explores the intersection of public history and private pain, reflecting on a childhood defined by the moment his world stopped—and the many long years of learning to live with that moment.

But as Kamaras tells us, “I never really got over it. I never got to say goodbye.”

Published by: Philip Kamaras
ISBN13: 979-8996203413
ASIN: B0H42MDWD4