The first and maybe most important thing is, as I mentioned in a comment yesterday, listening to people talk about Teddy Kennedy this week has made me want to be a very much better person than I believe I have been during my 51 years on this planet. What a giant of a man.
What kindness, and empathy, and determination, and sensitivity, and sacrifice his life represented. Until this week, I'd had no idea.
The second thing is, I don't mean to suggest that wealth or privilege in any way dilutes or diminishes the very real fear or grief that a human being experiences when a loved one dies, or when a child's life is at risk, or when a marriage ends, or when one faces the final showdown with death.
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And yet . . . as I listened to the heartwarming, tear-inducing stories -- one after another, example after example after example, a torrent of remembrances of the kindnesses, and the zest for life, and the responsibilities so nobly undertaken and so beautifully fulfilled, I couldn't help but wonder and reflect on the ways "being a Kennedy" made it possible for the man to be who Ted Kennedy became.
It first struck me when I was watching Tweety's documentary on "The Kennedy Brothers." A statement was made to the effect that after Joe Jr died, it became Jack's role to step in and fulfill Joe Sr's goal for his son to become President.
What an extraordinary thought. That a man can simply decide that his son is going to become President. And when that son dies, he can just substitute another in the dead son's place. And then proceed to make it happen.
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What did it take for this to happen? Well, money, obviously. More about that in a minute. Connections, an understanding of how the political world works, and how to use PR to break into politics. As Tweety put it, "Joe Sr had been a Hollywood mogul, and knew how to promote." Good looks -- if the physical appearances of JFK and Nixon had been reversed, the history of our country could have been very different after that first televised debate that led to an explosion in JFK's popularity.
And it took money. The financial wherewithal to make campaigning one's full-time job for months on end, especially if, as Jack admitted, one begins one's political career as a carpetbagger, taking advantage of a convenient Congressional seat opening in an area where one had grown up, but had not spent time for the previous decade. Money to print and distribute 100,000 copies of a Reader's Digest article about Jack's PT-109 heroics. During the later presidential run, money to purchase prime time on TV.
But that's Jack, not Teddy. Long ago, a DJ on a country music station I listened to said of Hank Williams Jr, "If it weren't for his daddy, he'd be flippin' burgers somewhere." I do not at all mean to diminish Ted Kennedy's extraordinary skills, talents and dedication as a legislator, but it became clear during his presidential run that his skills as a campaigner were nowhere near on a par with those of his brothers. Had his brother not been President, I wonder whether Teddy or the rest of us would ever have had a chance to see what a great legislator he was.
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When I was in fifth grade, we had an extraordinary teacher who really knew how to bring out the best in every student. One of the things she did was teach us how to play chess. There were several chessboards in the back of the room, and if we were finished with our work, we could play chess.
I was an excellent student, but I am a terrible chess player. My incompetence at chess is of epic proportions. The best chess player in our class, a boy I'll call Kevin, was nearly as incompetent at academics as I am at chess. He was also the "bad" kid in the class, always getting in trouble for his behavior and always getting D's and F's on his schoolwork.
But my how he did shine as a chess player. Kevin would regularly beat everyone in the class, including the teacher. As we began to admire his chess skills, his behavior improved and he became "nicer" to us, and before the end of the year we had actually elected him class president. None of that would have happened if he had not had the lucky break of being in a class where the teacher taught us to play chess and encouraged everyone to be the best they could be.
I wonder how many other people there are in this country who could be brilliant and accomplished legislators, but who are instead working in a coal mine or flipping burgers or are "welfare queens" or died young as a casualty of the "Drug Wars," because nothing ever happend in their lives to open the necessary doors for them to discover their political genius.
Or maybe that genius came out in their role as a gang leader or a union rep, but never would it occur to them to dream of political office, because they did not have Joe Kennedy as a father or Jack Kennedy as a brother or Daily Kos as a part of their everyday world.
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The second thing that got me thinking was a statement by someone at the "Celebration of Life" last night about how much Teddy loved the sea, how central a part of his life were his boat and his sailing. And this was illustrated by story after story about how he used sailing as a way to spend time with his children and his surrogate children, a way to teach them life lessons, a way to make connections with other people, a way to renew his own spirit in the face of the very real challenges he faced in his life.
How many millions of people in this country would, like Teddy, be "people of the sea," or of the mountains, or of big-sky prairies; would find in these cathedrals of nature the same inspiration and opportunities that Teddy found, but they live instead in dying rust belt cities, on dusty reservations bequeathed to their ancestors in exchange for the theft of their native lands, in inner city slums where mere survival demands extraordinary levels of strength and endurance.
How many other millions live in a place where they could find this type of beauty in the surroundings, but have no time because they are working 2 or 3 jobs just to try to feed and clothe their family. Or their health is too poor to allow them to participate in outdoor adventures. Or, struggling to survive financially, they cannot begin to imagine having the money for a boat, or camping equipment, or even a trip to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.
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The most touching part of this week has been hearing the stories of just how personally present Teddy was to so many people facing illness or grief, or celebrating joyous new chapters in their lives such as marriage or childbirth. How present he was to his children, his nieces and nephews, his friends. How imaginative and energetic he was in finding just the right gift, or writing a note that said just the right thing, or showing up at just the right moment with a suggestion of just the right activity to lift someone's spirits or just the right solution to their problem.
Honestly, the word that comes to mind for me is "saint."
But again, I wonder how many others there are whose hearts hold the same impulses of generosity, of presence, of standing at the sides of those who need support, but who are so caught up in the demands of survival that they have no strength or time to act upon those impulses. Whose days are instead a blur of getting up early to do the laundry and feed the kids breakfast and get them ready for school before dropping them off at day care and heading to work. And then spending the day feeling guilty about not being able to spend enough time with the kids and guilty about not giving 100% at work because of the demands at home. And then leaving work, picking up the kids, stopping at the grocery store to pick up something for dinner, and trying to get dinner on the table while getting the kids stop fighting and do their homework. And then doing the dishes and getting the kids to bed and paying the bills and finishing the laundry and dropping off to sleep to get ready to do it all again.
And visiting Mom at the nursing home once a week, between the grocery shopping and heading to Target to replace the kids' shoes that have gotten so small, and maybe there's a birthday party or a soccer game on Saturday, or maybe there's actually a chance to take them to a movie or the children's science museum, and if you're really lucky you'll find the time to call your sister or your best friend and chat for a while.
For so many of us, it is not the big things in life that hinder our living up to the image of the person we want to be, but just the daily grind, the one small thing after another, the totality of all the tasks needed to just make everyday life function.
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How generously Teddy lavished his time and attention on everyone whose path in life crossed his. How wonderful that he shared his love of the sea with so many, inviting them to join in the meaning and excitement it held for him. How admirable that, recognizing the ways his own life had been privileged, he put so much energy and commitment into fighting for a world in which everyone had opportunities to realize their own dreams and aspirations.
But how heartbreaking that we live in a world in which so many do not have the resources, the role models, the connections, the education, the money, the inspiration to dream big dreams, to find a path to achieving those dreams, to dig enthusiastically into life, to fully realize their potential.
And to make a difference the way Teddy did.