FOR ALL his eloquence, not even President Barack Obama could match the emotional impact of Teddy Kennedy junior’s remembrance of his father at the US senator’s funeral Mass.
Teddy jnr, a lawyer and investment banker, told how his leg was amputated to save him from bone cancer when he was 12 years old. The following winter, wearing a prosthesis, he tried to climb the hill behind the family home to go sledging, but slipped and fell on the ice. “I can’t do this. I’ll never be able to do this,” the boy cried.
“I know you can do it. There is nothing that you can’t do,” the senator from Massachusetts told his son. “We are going to climb that hill together, even if it takes all day.”
Teddy Kennedy jnr wept, and tears flowed down many faces in the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. “He taught me that nothing is impossible.”
In two days of ceremonies dedicated to Senator Kennedy, who died on August 26th, Teddy jnr got the biggest laugh, and the most thunderous standing ovation. “He taught me some of life’s hard lessons,” Kennedy said. “Like how to like Republicans. He once told me: ‘Republicans love this country as much as you and I do’.”
Two prominent Republican senators, the former presidential candidate John McCain and Orrin Hatch, delivered emotional tributes to their friend and colleague at what was called an Irish wake at the Kennedy library on Friday night.
Kennedy’s skill in befriending and working with people with whom he did not agree was one of his greatest qualities, much praised since his death.
Kennedy had asked that his funeral Mass take place in the Basilica that is affectionately known as the Mission Church, in Boston’s Roxbury district.
Originally an Irish enclave, Roxbury is now home to immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. Local radio remarked on the irony of funeral-goers being filtered through police barriers to enter a dangerous neighbourhood.
Eamon de Valera is said to have sheltered in the Basilica’s rectory with his half-brother, a Redemptorist priest, in 1919. There are stained glass shamrocks in the windows, and a chapel dedicated to St Patrick. When Teddy Kennedy’s daughter Kara was undergoing treatment for cancer at nearby Harvard Medical Center, he prayed for her every day in the church.
On one side of Tremont Street, ladies in black dresses, pearls and high-heeled shoes queued beside distinguished-looking men, clutching umbrellas and engraved invitations to the Mass. President Obama and first lady Michelle, three former US presidents, a majority of the Senate and a veritable who’s who of the Kennedy and Clinton years took seats inside, along with celebrities including Jack Nicholson, Lauren Bacall and Tony Bennett. The cellist Yo-yo Ma and tenor Placido Domingo graced the Mass with their performance.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen was the only foreign head of government who attended. British prime minister Gordon Brown sent his wife Sarah, and the Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward. The North was well represented, by Nobel Peace Prize laureate John Hume, the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and SDLP leader Mark Durkan.
At the wake on Friday night, Cowen talked to Kennedy’s widow Vicki, vice-president Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
At the funeral on Saturday, Teddy Kennedy jnr publicly thanked Cowen for coming to Boston. Cowen and Michael Collins, Ireland’s Ambassador to Washington, were seated in a place of honour immediately behind former presidents Bush, Clinton and Carter.
In conversations with The Irish Times, the Taoiseach and Sinn Féin leaders emphasised different aspects of Kennedy's contribution to the peace process.
“Ted Kennedy always consulted with Irish democratic leaders and John Hume in Northern Ireland before he made a strategic move or decision,” said Cowen, who was in close contact with Kennedy as Ireland’s foreign minister in the 1990s. The US senator “avoided in any way legitimising violence in our democratic politics,” he added.
Martin McGuinness attributed Kennedy’s abhorrence of political violence to the assassination of two brothers and the death of a third in war. McGuinness was grateful to Ted Kennedy for attending the relaunch of Stormont institutions in 2007, and for welcoming him and Ian Paisley to Washington the same year. McGuinness and Gerry Adams praised Kennedy for helping to obtain US visas for Adams and IRA man Joe Cahill in 1994. “He was prepared to tell the British prime minister when he thought he was doing things wrong,” McGuinness said. “He was fearless, absolutely fearless in that regard.” Hundreds of onlookers who lined the pavement opposite the church also expressed gratitude to Kennedy, though for many different things.
“Kennedy. Thank you.” said placards held by whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians, young and old, huddled under umbrellas behind the police line.
Kennedy’s second son Patrick, a congressman for Rhode Island, recalled his father’s reaction to being the liberal hate figure for Republicans. “We Kennedys sure bring out the best in people!” Teddy used to joke. Down on the corner of Tremont and Columbus, a few rain-drenched, right-wing Evangelical Christians protested against the dead senator’s stand on abortion. “Not Blessed, Just Cursed,” “Kennedy in Hell,” and “You Will Eat Your Babies, Lev 26-29” said their placards.
Through two days of ceremonies, Teddy Kennedy seemed incredibly present and alive. The man evoked by Obama and vice-president Joe Biden, by his friends, family and fellow senators, was larger than life, extraordinary.
Obama called him the “the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the soul of the Democratic party; and the lion of the US Senate”.
Kennedy was, he added, “the greatest legislator of our time”, who contributed to more than 1,000 laws.
Kennedy married Victoria Reggie, a Washington lawyer and divorced mother of two, in 1992, a decade after his own divorce. Several speakers paid tribute to Vicki for ending Kennedy’s descent into drinking and womanising.
“Vicki was the love and light of Teddy’s life,” said Orrin Hatch. Obama said: “(Vicki) didn’t just love him back. As Ted would often acknowledge, Vicki saved him. She gave him strength and purpose; joy and friendship.”
Television cameras zoomed in on Vicki Kennedy’s green eyes. Not once did she lose her composure, but she pursed her lips as Obama spoke, as if struggling to hold back emotion.
A highly developed sense of fun and humour, love for sailing on his schooner, the Maya, and Irishness were character traits most evoked by speakers.
Obama recalled Kennedy sending shamrock cookies to an opponent in the Senate. Kennedy explained his success in passing a difficult piece of legislation one St Patrick’s Day as “the luck of the Irish”.
