A man who knew pain eased it in others

It was Aug. 18, 2008. The senator read in the paper that two servicemen from Mashpee had died in Iraq and Afghanistan. He knew their grieving families would be together that afternoon, gathering for sandwiches and fortitude before a candlelight service at Mashpee’s veterans memorial.

It didn’t matter that he was in the middle of yet another chemotherapy treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital. It didn’t matter that he was clearly exhausted. It didn’t matter that people would understand if he couldn’t make it. He wanted to be with them.

“When you think it’s the moment not to call, that’s the moment to call,’’ he always told his aides. “The sooner, the better.’’ He wanted the relatives to know he was there if they needed him and to tell them he had lived their pain.

Others didn’t think the visit was such a good idea, but that didn’t matter to Ted Kennedy. As his hours of treatment ended, he declared: “We’re going down there.’’

So he stopped off in Hyannis Port to freshen up, an aide recalled. He put on a blazer and dress slacks and headed right back out.

By the time he arrived, the house was filled with relatives of Paul Conlon, a soldier killed in Afghanistan on Aug. 15, and Daniel McGuire, a Marine killed Aug. 14 in Iraq. Kennedy hugged every one of them. He charmed the kids. He petted the dogs.

He had visited with so many families like this over the years, telling them he knew how awful it felt. He could remember exactly where he was in August 1944 when the priest came to the door to tell his father that Joe Jr. had been killed in the war. Just a child then, he had borne that loss, and so many others since.

The Conlons and the McGuires knew he meant it when he thanked them for their great sacrifices.

“The first year is the hardest,’’ Maria Conlon, Paul’s mother, remembered him saying. “The first birthday, the first anniversary, the holidays. The pain will never go away, but it will be easier to bear. You will never forget them. They live forever within us.’’

The senator looked better than she’d expected - though he seemed tired and a little shaky on his feet. He sat in the living room for most of his visit, sipping water.

He leafed slowly through a photo album, asking Maria Conlon to tell him about her son. What was his nickname? Did he get into college? How did she feel about him going into the military?

His nickname was PJ. He’d gotten a scholarship to Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. She supported his enlistment because it was what he had always wanted.

She told Kennedy that she had taken Paul to the compound in Hyannis Port to watch fireworks 18 years ago, when he was 3. The senator seemed to like that. She told him about the time her son, at 16, put a hole in the ceiling jumping on the bed because he “wanted to feel like a kid again.’’ That gave Kennedy a good laugh.

The ailing senator was in no hurry to leave. He had words of comfort for every person in the house that afternoon.

“It gave me great admiration for him,’’ Maria Conlon said, “that somebody going through such a hard time with his own life, and for everything he’s suffered in the past, and still, he took the time to go to the family’s house, to sit there, not for five minutes, but for hours.’’

He wanted to attend the candlelight service, he told the families, but it was best for him to stay away.

“If I go, I’ll be in the spotlight,’’ Vicky Baron, Paul’s aunt, recalled him saying. “I don’t want to take away from what these young men did and what they gave up.’’

And so the senator hugged the grieving families goodbye and left the house, unseen.

Yvonne Abraham is a Globe columnist. Her e-mail address is abraham@globe.com.