Remembering Teddy

The Kennedys were gods second only to Roosevelt in the pantheon of my childhood home. So when I awoke this morning to the news that Teddy had died, I burst into tears.

I mourn not just the man, but the passing of an era. Kennedy stood as a bulwark against the meanness that has infected politics. His embodiment of public service is a stark refutation of those who have hijacked the truth and common purpose for partisan and personal gain. Kennedy believed that inherent to power and wealth is the obligation to serve those less fortunate. He cherished government as the sacred guarantor of fairness, security, and opportunity for all Americans, not just the privileged.

It’s odd that Teddy should die just when the hope inspired by President Obama, to whom he passed the Kennedy torch, feels so imperiled. Just as we thought we might be approaching the Promised Land after so many years in the wilderness, we have lost our Moses, our lion. It will be hard to find our way without his guidance at a time when the dream feels more savaged than salvageable.

Yet at the core of Teddy’s legacy is the knowledge that salvation cannot emerge from anywhere but darkness. This is the heart of his Catholic faith, and the lesson of his long life.

Teddy was the only Kennedy son to die a natural death. He alone was not felled at the height of promise. His brothers’ radiance gleamed under more flattering lighting, with insufficient time and wattage to tarnish their brightness. Teddy alone bore the burden of a life lived long in the public eye, harshly illuminated in all its tragedy, sordidness, and grace. Perhaps Kennedy’s greatness was forged in the reckoning with his demons—Chappaquiddick, alcohol, lechery, the assassins’ bullets. His story of redemption is a testament to faith and perseverance in a time of despair.

At a time when hope seems to be slipping away like sand in an hourglass, it is worth recalling that exactly one year before his death, a gravely ill Kennedy thrilled the nation with a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention in support of Barack Obama’s nomination for President. He reprised his own 1980 concession speech when he thundered, “The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”

Thank you, Senator Kennedy, for keeping the eternal flame alight for so long. We will not let it be extinguished.