As clan was beset by tragedies, the youngest brother took helm
Over the past four decades, as he witnessed tragedy after tragedy, Edward M. Kennedy emerged as his family's iconic torchbearer, the little brother-turned-patriarch.
But now the senator finds himself at the center of the latest sadness to engulf the Kennedy clan, with yesterday's news that he is suffering from a malignant brain tumor.
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said Kennedy has taken on not only the storied family's political mantle, but its private responsibilties as well, acting as a surrogate father to both his brothers' children.
When his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated, said Goodwin, the younger Kennedy made a conscious decision to carry on his brothers' work.
"I think there was a moment when Bobby died and Teddy said, 'I can't let go,' " Goodwin said. "He became not only the carrier of the political legacy, he became the carrier of the family."
Since his hospitalization on Saturday at Massachusetts General Hospital, Kennedy has been surrounded by his wife and family members, who have rallied at his bedside. Before his diagnosis was made public, friends and staff members said Kennedy was awake, watching the Red Sox, and joking from his bed. In trademark fashion, he put his best face on a bad situation. He has become accustomed to crisis, if not outright tragedy.
Kennedy's oldest brother, Joseph Kennedy Jr., the family's would-be politician, died in World War II after volunteering to pilot a plane delivering explosives. He was followed famously by his brother, John, the country's first Catholic president, who was assassinated in 1963. His next oldest brother, Robert, was killed by an assassin just five years later.
The tragedies continued into the next generation. Michael Kennedy, one of Robert Kennedy's sons, died when he hit a tree while skiing in 1998. In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash on his way to Martha's Vineyard. Another nephew was put on trial for an alleged rape in Florida.
Thomas Whalen, a Boston University professor who has written extensively about the Kennedys, said Ted Kennedy could have shied away from political life, with good reason, but did not. After each tragedy, he said, the Kennedys appear closer and with an increased resolve to work for public causes.
"Some of the things the Kennedys have done, people recoil at," Whalen said. "But tragedies like this [diagnosis] are something that resonate with every family. It humanizes them and makes them more like you and me."
Goodwin, a friend of Kennedy's, said news of the senator's illness brings back memories for many Americans who have witnessed their very public trials and tribulations.
Ted Kennedy, Goodwin said, has watched both his son and daughter successfully fight cancer.
"We've all been through the Kennedy saga, and there's so much emotion to it," she said. "What everyone's saying is he has fought through so many struggles . . . if anybody is going to keep fighting, there's no question it's him."
