loss...

i'm so sad about ted kennedy's passing today.....whatever your political leanings, it can't be denied that his efforts for our citizens were amazing.

i think he spent the last 40 years perhaps atoning for his own sins ---- and attempting to make things right?

i always get a tightness in my throat when i think about the losses that this family has suffered. for, at the very heart of things, they were A FAMILY. mother, father, children, grandchildren.....they had problems just like we all do. and while they may not have had the financial struggles that many of us face, they certainly have had their own personal suffering and crosses to bear.  i can relate to that. losing a son, father, sister, brother, uncle? how do you recover. and they suffered those losses many times over.....

president kennedy was assassinated before i was born, and robert kennedy was killed when i was a toddler. but the tragedy that has befallen this family is still one i can understand. how hard to lose so many loved ones.

but it truly seemed, when john kennedy, jr. died, that Fate had become a punitive and deliberately cruel member of this family. to lose him in the prime of his life? it must have brought them all to their knees - there certainly was a collective sorrow among us all for this man who would never grow old....a man who forever captured our hearts with that salute as his father's casket passed. it felt as though we had lost someone we knew.

i will never forget an interview ted kennedy gave afterward and the poignant tribute that came to an end because teddy, overcome with emotion, simply could not continue. the loss was simply too much to bear.  he looked like a sorrowful and wounded old man at that point - a man suffering greatly over the loss of his beloved nephew who had "every gift but length of years".

feeling very fortunate today that my family members are all alive and well.  and grateful that there are citizens among us who are willing to fight for those less fortunate, the down-trodden, and those discriminated against.  ted kennedy wasn't a perfect man, but really, who is? i think, since i'm not the Judge and Jury, that it's enough he spent most of the rest of his life trying to make things better for as many as he could.

i remember reading about a letter that jackie kennedy onassis wrote to him, thanking ted for his participation in caroline's wedding in lieu of her father, president kennedy.....jackie was said to feel that his devotion to SEVENTEEN children, in addition to his own, made him a hero. she wrote, "On you, the carefree youngest brother, fell a burden a hero would beg to be spared. Everyone is going to make it because you are always there with your love." she continued on and noted that he never missed a single, significant event for any of those children.

fatherless children, yes, but without a father figure? never.

yes, a hero.