I’m astonished at all the feedback I’ve gotten from my last post on Wednesday, entitled “Kennedy, my father and me.” It’s all been positive. I liked the piece too, but I take little credit for it striking a chord. Instead, it was all about the subject — Ted Kennedy, a visit to the Senate by me and my father in 1963, and the emotions generated by both. I spent so much of Wednesday writing that piece, responding to comments and working on other, unrelated duties, I didn’t have much of a chance to dwell on how I felt about the Senator’s passing. His death is more meaningful for me today.
I’m a left-leaning Democrat, so Kennedy’s politics have always suited me fine. I’m just old enough to remember the uproar surrounding the events at Chappaquiddick. Even as a kid, that whole mess struck me as wrong. I certainly remember the adults around me being chagrined. Later, after my father had become something of a big deal in Washington himself, we heard rumors about Kennedy’s shady social life. In the 1980s, it was his nephew and the charges facing him in Florida. Very unseemly stuff, all of it.
But as my father said yesterday, it sure seemed that Kennedy had improved his life during the past several years. Despite any personal demons he might have faced, he became more and more like a father figure to many of us. He became a statesman. He became the man he couldn’t be when he was younger. I can identify with that. It takes longer for some of us than others.
Michael Jackson’s death is still in the news. I know it may not be exactly the same thing, but I hope Ted Kennedy’s death gets a fraction of that attention. Something tells me it won’t.
So on the day AFTER Ted Kennedy died, I’m researching his legacy. It’s an amazing one. From boyhood, to being kicked out of Harvard, to coming back to Harvard, to the U.S. Senate, to becoming the leader of a political party. Ted Kennedy: What a remarkable story. It’s one we shouldn’t soon forget.