The Story Lives On

I hung the flag today in honor of Teddy. I did not grow up in a family of Kennedy lovers. Despite her Irish Catholic heritage, my mother quite adamantly despised them. As a child, I struggled with the incongruity of the portrait of this iconic family and the feelings of my mother. I was confused by the heart breaking images of the fallen JFK, his children and widow standing at attention and my mother's demonization of this heroic figure in American history. I remember being doubly confused by her tears on the night Sirhan Sirhan's bullet took the life of Robert Kennedy. Then came Chappaquiddick, the story that only seemed to reinforce my mother's contention of the moral failings of the Kennedy family. According to my mother, Edward was just another in the line of corrupt, privileged and moral-less playboys. Mary Jo one more victim of their avarice. Mother seemed hard hearted when it came to the tragedies that befell the Kennedy family. Except on that night in 1968, when Bobby was assassinated. It confused me. Especially since, having grown up in Catholic School, I was surrounded by other Catholic families on whose walls hung a portrait of JFK and for whom the words, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country" were not fodder for political satire as they were in my household, but a serious call to service. Out of this tension, this contradiction, this argument, I was forced to form my own opinions. Born in 1959, the Kennedy name has been woven into the fabric of the America in which I grew up. Their ideals, their eloquence, their indisputable record of service conflicted with my mother's venomous scorn. What resonated the most with me as I pieced together my own view of this complex family, was the incredible burden that fell on to the shoulders of Teddy Kennedy as he rose to assume the mantel of patriarch due to his family's series of tragic losses. Never was this more evident to me than when John F. Kennedy, Jr. was killed in a plane crash in 1999. Broken hearted I watched as Caroline was dealt another cruel blow - the only living member of her famously tragic family of origin. Her pain, I could only imagine. It seemed that in her time of despair, her uncle, Ted, stepped into the moment with strength and compassion. A father-figure whose weighty responsibility only seemed to grow heavier with time. I was two years old when JFK was killed. Nine when I puzzled over my mother's tears in 1968. But at forty, as I watched Caroline and Ted on the boat, saying goodbye to Jackie's only son, I was an adult woman, whose own story included the relatively premature deaths of my father and brother. For me, the grief I felt and observed, melted my mother's cold hearted opinions and the story of the Kennedy's became one of loss and survival. I believe, were she able to admit it, my mother's tears on that night in 1968, were born out of her own understanding of loss and the grief that Rose must have felt as a mother, burying yet another son. Mother, too, buried her own sons. Our views are shaped by our experiences. This morning, as I watched the funeral Mass for Senator Edward Kennedy, I was inspired not only by his achievements as a legislator and his Democratic ideals, but by his imperfections as a human being. I saw a man whose life reflected not only his successes but his failures. And I heard his sons speak of a man, who urged them to never give up despite set backs and tragedies. And I saw all of this, against the backdrop of the Catholic church, itself an imperfect institution in which redemption is possible and forgiveness is guaranteed. And I felt proud and grateful to have lived at this remarkable time in our nation's history. I was proud of my Catholic heritage and moved by the familiar and comforting ritual of the Mass of the Resurrection that has been balm for my own aching heart in my times of loss. We are all imperfect human beings. Mother, Teddy, me. But in the end, the story of our lives - messy, complicated, contradictory, courageous, heroic - the story - of how we survive unspeakable losses and transform them into gifts of compassion, wisdom and understanding - is the legacy we leave behind. This is Teddy's legacy. It too, is my mother's. At fifty, this is the opinion and belief I have forged out of the confusing, mixed messages of my childhood - our life is our journey, our journey is our story and our story is our legacy. The story lives on.