Glories Unforseen, Stories Left Untold

Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy has died.

It is not enough for us to grieve, though we must. It is not enough to remember, though we will. It is not enough to speak of the man's greatness, his courage in the face of cancer, or his determination to do right by all people. For he, more than most, knew this country, knew it's potential, knew the good in it, and knew how it suffered. He dedicated himself to it, not for the sake of a legacy, but for the continued well-being of a decent people, in Massachusetts, and in America.

He suffered right along with us.

He watched his brothers John and Robert step into the fire, to be consumed by it, even as they tried to free the nation from the miasma of its past. He, too, stepped into the fire with them, and became singed by it, but stood firm, and beat back the flames, though we will never truly know what part of him was consumed. He spoke so eloquently of his brothers in death, endured each tragedy of the Kennedy family in turn with stoic grace, and was their bulwark through periods that would have broken anyone else.

He was no saint, and given what he lived through, that should be no surprise, for to put one man under so much strain for so long will rob even the strongest of us of our resolve to be the best we can be. Yet, no foible or fault did he have that was so heinous, as to reduce him to mere caricature. No one would claim he was a paper tiger.

Respected by Democrats and Republicans alike, he fought hard for all people in this country, having a hand in such crucial legislation as the Civil Rights Act (1964), the Voting Rights Act (1965), the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (1993). Even at the end, he was continuing the fight to ensure that every American would have affordable, unbreakable health care. He would not let a little thing like cancer keep him from the fight, but eventually, he could not hope to overcome it, and had to fall back to the sidelines as others struggled to bring his vision to pass.

We will mourn, we will grieve, and we will move forward, because if Ted Kennedy has left us any legacy, it is one of perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds or unimaginable grief. He showed us that anything that is good is worth fighting for, and that standing upon your principles need not be politics nor personal flaw. He has left this world better than it was when he started, but the work has not been finished, the last wrong has not been righted, and the last lamp has not been lit. The mantle has slipped from his shoulders, but must not reach the ground; we must pick it up, hoist it upon ourselves, and continue to fight for the good works he envisioned.

Senator Edward Kennedy, the man is dead, but his vision and strength lives on in each of us, and that is the most fitting tribute there can be.

We Must Cry For Caylee

My three-year-old daughter was home Tuesday, sick, watching the Inaugural with my wife. It struck me that at her age, 40 years beforehand, I too had been before a TV with my parents, watching a momentous event: Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon. I marvelled at the resonance, and the fact that as I grew up in world when men had set foot on another celestial body, she would grow up in a world where it would be possible for her to be President someday, now that the barrier to that office has been shattered.

Of course, as much as my daughter delights me and makes me humble, she also upsets me and often does things I wish she wouldn't. Of late, she has kept me up at night, and interrupted my sleep, which I do not seem to get enough of. I have been curt and cross with her lately, despite my best intentions as her father. But as angry as I sometimes get, when she behaves badly, it never occurs to me that my life would be anything but worse without her.

So, reading today about the current evidence in the Caylee Anthony murder investigation, I was stunned. Admittedly, I find the thought that someone murdered this beautiful young child abhorrent, but the new information just released to the public leads me to believe the murder was the act of a psychotic mind. To hear that the poor girl had been gagged with duct tape, and then her captor had apparently placed a heart-shaped sticker on the gag, was mind-wrenching. It is one thing to murder an innocent child, quite another to do it so calculated a fashion.

Caylee's poor life was snuffed out, not in some random act of violence, which is all too common, but in an act of premeditated and selfish destruction. It takes a complete self-absorption and cold resolve to so callously kill a child.

I do not know if Caylee's mother did this or not. If she didn't, I'm sorry for what she went through. If she did, I can only hope that she is consumed in the fiery pits of an other-worldly hell. To kill a child is bad enough, but to kill your child is a sin from which there can be no redemption.

And so I will cry for Caylee, as we all must, we who value the precious life of children. Tonight I will go home, pick my daughter up, hold her very tightly, and tell her how much I love her. I will revel in that feeling. I will try to let it seep through my skin. I will never forget it. And inside, in a small corner of my heart, I will share that feeling with a poor girl who will never know it again.