Ted Kennedy Jr. Says Goodbye To His Father
By Nicole Belle Sunday Aug 30, 2009 7:00am
The most moving part of the services for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy for me was when his son, Ted Kennedy, Jr., spoke. With so much mythology swirling around about the Kennedy family and their legacy, it's easy to forget that at his core, Kennedy was a family man, who in addition to his public service, had to serve as the head of a rather extraordinary family:
There is also much to say and much will be said about my father the man. The storyteller, the lover of costume parties, a practical joker, the accomplished painter. He was a lover of everything French: cheese, wine, and women. He was a mountain climber, navigator, skipper, tactician, airplane pilot, rodeo rider, ski jumper, dog lover, and all around adventurer. Our family vacations left us all injured and exhausted.
He was a dinner table debater and devil's advocate. He was an Irishman and a proud member of the Democratic Party.
Here's one you may not know: Out of Harvard he was a Green Bay Packers recruit but decided to go to law school instead.
He was a devout Catholic whose faith helped him survive unbearable losses and whose teachings taught him that he had a moral obligation to help others in need.
He was not perfect, far from it. But my father believed in redemption and he never surrendered. Never stopped trying to right wrongs, be they the results of his own failings or of ours.
But today I'm simply compelled to remember Ted Kennedy as my father and my best friend. When I was 12 years old I was diagnosed with bone cancer and a few months after I lost my leg, there was a heavy snowfall over my childhood home outside of Washington D.C. My father went to the garage to get the old Flexible Flyer and asked me if I wanted to go sledding down the steep driveway. And I was trying to get used to my new artificial leg and the hill was covered with ice and snow and it wasn't easy for me to walk. And the hill was very slick and as I struggled to walk, I slipped and I fell on the ice and I started to cry and I said "I can't do this." I said, "I'll never be able to climb that hill." And he lifted me in his strong, gentle arms and said something I'll never forget. He said "I know you'll do it, there is nothing you can't do. We're going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day."
Sure enough, he held me around my waist and we slowly made it to the top, and, you know, at age 12 losing a leg pretty much seems like the end of the world, but as I climbed onto his back and we flew down the hill that day I knew he was right. I knew I was going to be OK. You see, my father taught me that even our most profound losses are survivable and it is what we do with that loss, our ability to transform it into a positive event, that is one of my father's greatest lessons. He taught me that nothing is impossible.
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I loved when he said that. There is no shame in being a real man, and he said it in church too. It was touching to hear his love for his father expressed so eloquently.
that without seeing the actual Death Certificate there's no proof that Kennedy really died and yesterday was a dastardly conspiracy to push through ObamaCare.
made me cry.
that was in 1973, four years after a good buddy of mine lost his leg to cancer as well. Unfortunately, my buddy passed away within a year of that operation.
Hug your kids.
I got teary eyed, too.
I used to get sick often as a kid, and wondered if I'd ever get well.
My father came home from work one day and took me in his arms the same way Ted did for his son, and told me I'd get well because I was a fighter and fighters never quit.
I got well and have been in pretty good health for the last 40 years. I knew if I suffered losing my leg to cancer the way Ted, Jr., did, there's nothing my dad wouldn't have done within his power to do it.
Ted's eugolgy reminded me of my own dad. He wasn't perfect, but he was a good father.
You see, my father taught me that even our most profound losses are survivable and it is what we do with that loss, our ability to transform it into a positive event, that is one of my father's greatest lessons. He taught me that nothing is impossible.
So let's take the loss of Teddy Kennedy and transform it into Universal health care for the American people.
Ads are running on a thread below looking for support and el dinero for the republicans bill of right's on health care.
have a bill , eh does it have words and such like huh ?
No just a center-fold
And a cigarette ad.
Sarah Palin?
since when is shrinkage a good thing ? .
My copies of Babyface comes in shrink-wrap.
I agree, it was a marvelous eulogy -- he is a gifted speaker.
Who better to continue what his father started?
The realm of possibility is simply a function of hard work and belief.
We will achieve universal healthcare...and more...if we want it hard enuf and work hard enuf for it.
right about " working hard enuf for it " ,
doing what i can , wont live long enuf to see it though
that Ted Kennedy touched with his life. I thought about the people that lined the streets that held up signs saying "Thank you." All of the people that went to pay respect to him in Massachusetts. All the stories of the help and support that he gave to everyone he met that we heard yesterday and over the previous week.
For me, I am grateful to him for being able to play girl's volleyball in school in the 70's when there was no funding for girl's sports until Title IX was passed. It meant the world to me. Growing up in Texas was an experience in sexism that many still experience today.
And then I thought about his detractors... Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck, Hannity... etc. And I wonder how many of them, when they finally pass, will have people lining their funeral path holding up signs saying "Thanks, Rush, for keeping government from helping me...I pulled myself up by my bootstraps."
Such a contrast in how to live one's life.
even a peek ? s/m
His dad would have beamed with pride. Teddy hit all the right notes and complimented the right people.
His heartbreaking story about that icy driveway was moving, personal and real.
I could see myself voting for this Kennedy BUT he seems wisely out of the public arena. Also:
"You see, my father taught me that even our most profound losses are survivable and it is what we do with that loss, our ability to transform it into a positive event, that is one of my father's greatest lessons. He taught me that nothing is impossible."
To me THIS is the real Kennedy legacy.
...this eulogy made me cry. Just such an inspiration.
We are, none of us, perfect. If there is a heaven, this guy is walking with the angels now.
...when I first heard the news, nor when I started watching the TV coverage, but when I heard the boys talk about their father and uncle, somehow my Irish blood quietly awoke and reconnected with them.
As a cancer survivor (two years since the last chemo session but still experiencing the aftereffects), Ted's story moved me deeply. Perseverance ("Never, never, never give up!") is so hard when you're exhausted and depressed and can't really see a good future. My own parents weren't around to support me (and wouldn't have anyway, as I'm the black sheep) during my ordeal, but as Ted Jr. talked, somehow, emotionally, I felt "Uncle Teddy" reaching out to put an arm around me too, to help me up that steep hill in the snow. Of course it's impossible in time and space, it was only subjective, but still, it filled a hole in my heart and memory.
I'll work harder in the future to make that old dream come true.
own hill. Blessings to you as you move forward...
♥ !
So much of Senator Edward Kennedy's “The Dream Shall Never Die” speech is relevant now. It makes me sad that so many Americans do not know how much it was really he that advanced the dreams of his brothers into reality. So many of us who want now to pick up the "fallen standard" need the example his life offers of HOW liberal ideals can be transformed into something real that betters the lives of our neighbors.
I put together some of the audio of the speech, accompanied it with images and ideas that highlight some of his accomplishments, and put it into a video. The following page also has information on the 6 (of 13 or a minority) Democratic senators in the Senate Finance Committee who have yet to pledge their support for the public option in the Kennedy Health Care bill.
http://ipolity.com/wiki/index.php?page=TDP+He...
I can't bring myself to imagine a world without Ted Kennedy, and, selfishly, I wish he could somehow live on eternally with the rest of us, forever fighting for the weak and speaking for those who had no voice. Still, there is also joy in knowing that the great Senator's work will change the lives of millions of Americans for generations to come. He was given the chance to do the work his brothers began, and he has earned a peaceful rest.
While we mourn our loss, we're grateful for the happy reunion taking place "beyond the horizon." We love and miss you, Senator. And we thank you.
a very good man.
My father was a conservative Republican who loved the Kennedys. Why? He told me they always gave the most mesmerizing speeches. He was so right. That speech, along with countless others will go down in history.
I'm just saddened that we lost another great politician and a great human being.
You sound like a fool, Health care reform is needed. Mr Ted Kennedy don't have to pretend to die for it, after all he's worked for health care for years. You should be ashame of you self, But than there is no shame in some people.
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