Taking the measure of a complicated man

Ted Kennedy, who died last week, was a 77-year-old grandfather, father, uncle, husband, brother, longtime senator and friend to many. His life reads like a paperback melodrama.

When he was a very young senator from Massachusetts — just 31 — his brother, Jack, the 46-year-old president of the United States, was shot and killed by an assassin. The president left a wife, two children and millions of grieving Americans behind.

A year later, young Ted Kennedy was dragged, half-dead, from the wreckage of a small plane in which two others were killed. He had a broken back and spent months in the hospital.

Four years later, his only surviving brother, Bobby, was assassinated while campaigning for president. He left a wife and 11 children.

Teddy, of course, had already lost his oldest brother, Joe, who was killed in World War II. All three brothers dead, all three deaths violent and unnecessary and tragic.

After Bobby was killed, Ted had many choices of what to do with his life and his shattered family. He was rich and didn’t have to work. But he chose to continue in the Senate. He became the “father” for all his fatherless nieces and nephews, attending their graduations, celebrating their successes and holding them up when they fell or failed. None of us can know the depths of Ted Kennedy’s darkest hours or what we would have done in his place.

What we do know is that he turned toward the light, working tirelessly in the Senate for more than 40 years, helping to pass the greatest civil rights legislation in this country. The bills he sponsored and guided through Congress prevented discrimination against women, prevented harassment in the workplace, created fair, equal pay for women, helped uphold affirmative action, helped make available billions of dollars for those with HIV/ AIDS, protected women from domestic violence, helped guarantee civil rights for Americans with disabilities and hiked the minimum wage. He said that health care reform was the single most important issue of our time, and he fought for it fiercely until the day he died.

When he was just 31, still recovering from his back injuries and following the death of his brother, Jack, Ted Kennedy spoke before the Senate in support of JFK’s civil rights bill. He said, “My brother was the first president of the United States to state publicly that segregation was wrong. His heart and his soul are in this bill. If his life and death had a meaning, it was that we should not hate but love one another ...” The bill passed several months later.

All this fine work, all these bills that helped people who could not help themselves, surely improved and saved thousands of lives.

But the good work is not the whole story of this man. He was wild and irresponsible when he was young. He cheated on tests at college. He drank too much and made bad decisions that hurt his wife and his children and disappointed his friends.

Late one night in 1969, a year after Bobby was killed, Ted drove a car off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Mass. He was with Mary Jo Kopechne, a young woman not his wife. His car disappeared into the water, but Kennedy managed to swim to safety. The young woman drowned. The character flaw that began with cheating in college and cheating on his wife now had become a fatal flaw. What he did was morally, ethically and legally wrong. Someone else, without his political connections, would most probably have gone to jail. But he lost his license for six months and went on with his life.

Eventually, he got sober. He married again, and by all accounts was a devoted husband. His friends and colleagues and even his political opponents respected and loved him. He was adored and honored by his extended family.

What can we make of this man? How culpable was he in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne? Did he redeem himself through his work and his dedication to his family?

I suppose it is not for us to say. But there is a lesson in his life — a life that was so big, written so large, on a very public stage. Kennedy had choices. When his brothers died, he could have turned inward and given up on life, but he stayed the course and continued to serve the country.

When he broke his back, he struggled to get back on his feet again, fighting through physical pain as great as the emotional pain that haunted him. In 1969, after Chappaquiddick, he stayed in public service and fought his demons and, over the next 40 years, created and helped pass hundreds of bills. His last choices were sound choices, courageous choices, and all of us in this country are better for his service.

Still, the death of Kopechne always did and always will mitigate his success, not as a legislator, but as a human being.

Copyright © 2009 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 304.