We Were There

On August 14^th, I accompanied my sister Dawn, and her dear friend and pianist Kayo, to Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s funeral where Dawn had been asked to sing. We were at the Tanglewood Music Festival in the Berkshires with my parents when the call came in that kicked off an outrageous 48 hours of excitement, anticipation, shock, deep admiration and, ultimately, reflection.

It started with a whirlwind, last minute, cross the state trip to Hyannisport – an almost mythical place in my mind. What this extraordinary experience confirmed was that this family is as human as you and me, but their sense of responsibility and commitment to improving the lives of others is so fundamental to the family culture, it is astounding.

More than the incredible celebrity sightings, which I assumed before the funeral events, were going to be the most memorable part of the experience, the service itself and the words spoken by the family were the most powerful. From the 19 grandchildren who each had something unique to share about their grandmother, to Maria Shriver's most extraordinary eulogy for her mom, our experience of this family was that they are a loving, fun, warm, unaffected, appreciative group of folks. We obviously didn’t meet or even directly observe every single one of them, but from hearing them speak, watching them relate to others and the way in which we were included in their celebration of the life of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, it became clear who these people really are.

Our prior exposure to them was through sound bites, stories of tragedy, stories of wayward sons, characterizations of American royalty – but what we experienced was so different from that.

I read the following short article by Ted Sorensen – advisor to JFK. His words so completely reflect my experience of the Kennedy family last week that I wanted to share them here:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/21/sorensen.kennedy.family/index.html