Senator Ted Kennedy was escorted by police motorcade from Mass. General Hospital in Boston back to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport this afternoon. A smiling Ted waved to reporters and as he has so many times during the tragedy that seems to dog this American family, he spent his time in hospital boosting the spirits of those around him. At 76 he has a chequered medical history including recent carotid artery surgery to help prevent stroke.
When rushed to hospital on Saturday morning, most thought he was having a stroke. Instead we all now know it was a seizure related to brain cancer and a malignant tumour located in the very delicate centre for speech and motor functions. As every commentator has said in hushed tones, it’s serious.
For much of my early life, I had the great privilege to live in the state represented by America’s most snake bitten family. Joe Jr., the oldest son of Joseph P. and Rosemary Kennedy was killed in action during the Second World War. 2nd son John’s boat PT-109 was sunk and his persistent back problems relate to his war service. In 1960, JFK leapt from the Senate to the White House by a slim electoral margin. In November of 1963 he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas. Number three son, Bobby jumped in to fill his shoes, was also a Senator and was in the midst of a tough run for the Presidency when cut down by an assassin’s bullet in California.
Teddy was 4th in line and lived in the shadow of his older siblings. When the spotlight shone his way he became the junior Senator from Massachusetts and has since won six more terms to that office. A traffic accident and lapse of judgment ended in the death of a young staffer in 1969 and contributed to a failed 1980 run for the Presidency. As a colleague said to him, Ted, you could never have accomplished all that you have had you won the Presidency.
The tributes to Teddy have filled the airwaves the last five days. 90-year old Senator Robert Byrd was reduced to tears on the floor of the Senate talking about his dear old friend. Ted is one of the last in a long line of folks who “get things done” by reaching across the aisle to forge solutions and coalitions. Often called “The Liberal Lion,” he has worked steadfastly for those who have little. “He is” said fellow Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry, “someone who never looked for credit and when something went badly always put his hand up to accept blame.” Barack Obama sought his counsel when contemplating his current run for the White House to which Kennedy gave his blessing (and then his outright endorsement). In that meeting he was so impressed he said simply, “go make history.”
As word of the Senator’s condition became public this weekend, members of both houses of Congress and even President Bush were reduced to stunned speechlessness. The prognosis is not good. The emotional bedrock of the family who helped to raise his brother’s children as well as his own now has a crack or two in the foundation they are rallying around him in great numbers.
His niece Maria Shriver (of NBC News) is married to Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who said quietly, “he helped raise my wife, there are so many people in politics today, myself included, who are there because of him and his example.”
My own father’s boss re-married into the Kennedy family as the husband of Ann Gargan, the woman who spent years postponing her life to quietly nurse and care for Papa Joe before he died. It was a marriage late in life for both and no one had ever seen either of them happier. Tom died of a heart attack very suddenly within a few weeks of retiring from a 40 year career as BOAC station chief in Boston. I worked with Tom’s son that summer and attended the funeral.
Senator Kennedy and Joan were there and it was so evident that the circumstances of yet again seeing a family member robbed of happiness so suddenly in this way affected him very deeply. This was 31-years ago and the weight of so many funerals was squarely on his shoulders, especially for someone who had given so much of her life to his father. Now in a family the size of the Kennedys, funerals are a natural part of life, but the ever present tragedy was too much for all of us.
And yet afterwards, he stood there quietly lifting everyone else’s spirits with the right line and sentiment. It seems everyone in Massachusetts has a story about this everyman who gives so much of himself to make sure others are cared for.
When people ask me why I support Barack Obama, I say because the Kennedy’s got me interested in public service by their living example. I still believe in Camelot and will always wonder where the world would be if John had served two full terms followed by two terms of Bobby a few years later. I wonder how much more tolerant we might be of each other had Dr. King left his motel room a little later that morning in Memphis and instead of the squabbling, backbiting politicians we have today, what if we had a group of men and women focused on just one thing – doing good and doing right?
The Kennedy boys were hardly angels. They worked hard and played even harder. And who could really blame them? Not one of them asked for the spotlight and yet the mantle of leadership was thrust upon them and when asked to step into the spotlight, they all, to a man, did.
As Lance Armstrong and pitcher John Lester proved, cancer can be beaten by strong support, good treatment, will and determination. The Lion of Massachusetts is not about to go to sleep.
Not now. We won’t let him. There is still too much left for him to do.
