His compassion lifted many

No, came the answer from immigration officials, who concluded that the coup had not hurt the couple directly, and that they must go back.

Stunned, and with no idea what to do next, the Abrahams took a chance, as so many other frightened, desperate people have, on a powerful man they prayed would listen to their plea: Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

They wrote to Kennedy, and soon after, at the senator’s request, officials reexamined their appeal and granted them asylum.

“We owe our lives to the senator,’’ Abe Abraham recalled from his office at CMI Management, the thriving Virginia company he founded 20 years ago. “There is no doubt in my mind, if we went home, we wouldn’t be alive.’’

A legendary legislator, lauded for crossing party lines to build powerful alliances, Kennedy will be remembered as a tireless lawmaker.

The government programs he helped create have changed millions of lives, granting health care to children, medical leave to families, and higher wages to blue collar workers.

But behind the scenes, working quietly but just as doggedly, the Massachusetts senator and his staff labored to fix wrongs done to individual Americans, both his constituents and others who sought help, often with life-altering consequences.

When a grieving, frustrated Julie Primeau was repeatedly rebuffed by federal investigators as she tried to learn the circumstances of her brother’s death, Kennedy demanded the reports on his diving accident and handed them over to the grateful Fitchburg woman. When Lauren Stanford, a Plymouth teenager with juvenile diabetes, wrote a letter asking him to support stem cell research, Kennedy became her pen pal and invited her to testify at a Senate hearing.

“She’s my kid and she’s special to me, but she is one of millions of people who need the attention of the US government, and for her to have gotten it the way she has is unbelievable,’’ said Moira McCarthy Stanford, Lauren’s mother. “For her to be heard the way she’s been heard has instilled in her a respect for public service that will live forever.’’

Because of the personal tragedies he weathered, Kennedy was seen as a leader with deep reserves of empathy, who understood loss and suffering firsthand. His own struggles made him human to his legions of supporters, who drew hope and strength from his perseverance, through the loss of family members, career-altering public disgrace, and, most recently, his battle with brain cancer.

Yesterday, people helped by the senator paused to remember how he made their problems his own, and marveled at the sheer number of stories like theirs - a testament to the competence of Kennedy’s staff and his own attention to detail.

“The world just seems a darker place today, and quieter,’’ said Cindy McGinty, whose husband, Mike, died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. “Even though you didn’t see him every day, you felt him.’’

Kennedy’s empathy was the following days, he called all 177 Massachusetts family who lost a member and offered his help. McGinty soon learned the senator really meant it, when she lamented the tangle of red tape she faced in the aftermath, and he took immediate action, creating an advocate program to help victims’ families.

Kennedy never spoke publicly about the help he gave them. Instead, “he downplayed it,’’ McGinty said.

Every year, he contacted her on the anniversary of the tragedy, and sometimes more often, to check on her and her children, she said.

“He taught me how to put one foot in front of the other,’’ said McGinty, “and do for other people . . . I really think that he’s my hero.’’

Magi Bish said Kennedy “had a way of coming to me when I needed him,’’ calling her when her daughter Molly disappeared; calling to share the good news when child safety legislation was progressing; calling her again when her husband lay shattered by a stroke.

“I’m just a first-grade teacher from a small town, we’re working people, but he knew our trauma and our sadness, and he always remembered who we were,’’ Bish said yesterday, her voice shaking. “Today he can be in peace, great peace and happiness, and I just hope my Molly has the opportunity to give him one of those great big Molly hugs, and thank him for everything he did for us.’’

Fred Fay, a disability rights activist from Concord who broke his neck and was paralyzed in 1961, said he felt a close connection to Kennedy, who suffered serious injuries of his own as the result of a 1964 plane crash. A leading supporter of the Americans With Disabilities Act, Kennedy consulted Fay on the legislation and visited him at his home, where the two men shared coffee, muffins, and strategies for coping with physical limitations.

“He came back from so much that would have made other people give up on themselves,’’ Fay said. “He set a pattern over many years of being a real survivor . . . He was a very compassionate man.’’

His compassion rarely ended with a single gesture.

When a terrified father called Kennedy’s office in 1987 and said his son could not get access to the latest cancer drug, the senator’s staff intervened on his behalf. When the drug could not save the young man and he was sent home to die, his father called Kennedy again, distraught over the uncomfortable, hand-cranked bed the Veterans Affairs medical center had provided. The next day, an electric bed arrived.

Kennedy befriended Brian and Alma Hart of Bedford in November 2003, after their son John was killed in Iraq. Told it would be a six-week wait to bury him at Arlington National Cemetery, they appealed to Kennedy, who helped cut the wait in half. The senator attended the funeral of the 20-year-old soldier, and listened as a stricken Brian Hart voiced his terrible suspicion that better equipment could have saved his son’s life.

Then Kennedy went to war in Congress, fighting for and winning huge advances in funding for protective body armor and armored vehicles.

“It gives some meaning to our son’s death,’’ Brian Hart said.

For the Abrahams, the Ethiopian couple whose lives unfolded in America because of Kennedy’s help, the senator became a symbol of all the best qualities of their adopted country.

Of all the lessons they have drawn from Kennedy’s life, Azzi Abraham was moved yesterday by one of the simplest.

“One human being can do so much,’’ she said.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.