Juan Romero, the young busboy who cradled the dying U.S. President Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, struggled for decades to get over the incident that has shaken him for life. Romero celebrated his birthday in June and went out for dinner with his family; something that he was not able to do in decades. "I always dreaded when June was coming up," said the now 65-year-old man, according to The Los Angeles Times.
The then 17-year-old Romero worked as a busboy after school at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Calif.. He felt proud with how Kennedy, then the leading Democratic candidate, treated him after he delivered room service earlier in the week. As R.F.K. was passing through the kitchen service area, the young busboy reached out for Kennedy's hand to congratulate him and that's when the candidate fell down after several gunshots.
"I wanted to protect his head from the cold concrete," Romero said. He went to school the next day with Kennedy's dried blood under his fingernails.
The 17-year-old took RFK's hand – then watched him slump to the floor as gun blasts echoed https://t.co/bT7sfKu3We pic.twitter.com/LXgioFfYgM
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 30, 2015
"He made me feel like a regular citizen," he added, Telegraph UK reported. "He made me feel like a human being. He didn't look at my color, he didn't look at my position ... and like I tell everybody, he shook my hand. I didn't ask him."
"First he asked 'Is everybody OK?' and I told him 'Yes, everybody's OK'. And then he turned away from me and said 'Everything's going to be OK.'"
He remembered how he placed rosary beads on Kennedy as he struggled for his life, said on the LA Observed.
After the incident, Romero left the hotel after visitors would come in and ask for a photograph with him which he found insensitive.
After suffering depression and guilt for a number of decades, Romero said he was able to slowly heal "spiritually and emotionally," since he began a friendship with a German woman, Claudia Zwiener. Romero had become guarded about people who tried to help him because he was unsure of their motives, but for him Zwiener was different.
"She really wanted to see how I was doing, and to find out if she could do anything to make it easier on my conscience," Romero said as he no longer wallows in sadness, LA Times reported.
"I don't carry the cross anymore."
