Strength in the Broken Places: Ted Kennedy, 1932 - 2009

© 26 August 2009, The Griot Poet

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway

Ted M. Kennedy died in the comfort of his home in Massachusetts with family and friends surrounding him. He died to the date of his speech at the Democratic National Convention nominating (now) President Barack Obama as history’s first African American candidate endorsed by a major political party. He’d supported (then) Senator Obama in January of 2008 before succumbing to a seizure and the diagnosis later of a malignant brain tumor.

Strength in the broken places: despite getting expelled from Harvard in 1951 for cheating on an exam, he managed to get elected Senator in 1962.

Senator Kennedy championed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He authored more than 3,500 bills, the Family and Medical Leave Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act being among them.

Strength in the broken places: Ted Kennedy lost older brother Joe in battle in WWII. John he lost to Lee Harvey Oswald. Robert was assassinated while running for president by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (mainly) for his support of Israel in the six-day war one year prior to pulling the trigger.

Chappaquiddick was one of his many “broken places.”

At 37, the young Senator drove off a bridge while in the company of Mary Jo Kopechne. Ms. Kopechne drowned. The Senator was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident with a two-year suspended sentence. Had the Internet been active and fully tabloid, his career and usefulness would be over.

In 1980, he ran a failed, bitter campaign against President Jimmy Carter, ultimately losing to him and then supporting him.

Republicans that are ardently against health care reform, bitterly opposed his support of Roe vs. Wade, counted him as a dear friend.

A “Lion of the Senate” builds a life from repeated failures. He finds strength in the broken places and gives the remainder of his life to service for others. A tombstone listing his accomplishments would be as large as the Vietnam Vets Memorial.

If America is truly a “Christian nation” as is oft quoted in our sound bite, 24-hour news cycle: then the lesson of Senator Kennedy’s life would be that there is redemption after failure and great sin; that the sun ascends and sets on all and as Hemingway also stated: “Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died [that] distinguish one man from another.” His service and his boisterous, back-slapping laughter were his roar and his strength.