Kennedy laid to rest at Arlington Cemetery
BOSTON -- Sen. Edward Kennedy was remembered as a fierce competitor, a tender-hearted father, and, in the words of President Obama, "the greatest legislator of all time," at a packed funeral Mass on Saturday in his hometown.
As the strains of "America the Beautiful," sung by more than 1,400 voices, rose to the vaulted rafters of the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, members of his storied family bore the veteran Massachusetts lawmaker's remains out of the church and into a steady rain.
"My father taught me even the most profound losses are survivable," the senator's eldest son, Teddy Kennedy Jr., told the mourners as he described how the two of them worked to climb an icy hill together after the younger Kennedy lost a leg to cancer.
But the stricken faces in the crowd belied his brave words.
"The greatest expectations were placed upon Ted Kennedy's shoulders because of who he was, but he surpassed them all because of who he became," President Obama said in a eulogy that culminated the 2½-hour service.
Following the funeral, Kennedy's body was flown to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. One last stately, sentimental procession is planned to the U.S. Capitol, where members of the public have been invited to watch the cortege. Past and present members of Kennedy's staff began lining the marble steps leading up to the doors of the Senate chamber, where Kennedy served for nearly a half-century, to bid him farewell. Ailing Sen Robert Byrd (D — W. Va.) held an American flag and joined staffers on the steps in the intense summer heat.
Afterwards, Kennedy was driven across the river for a hero's burial in Arlington National Cemetery next to the slain siblings whose mantle he inherited, former president John Kennedy and senator Robert Kennedy.
The last of a band of brothers whose father prepped them for political power and whose tragedies and triumphs are intertwined with five decades of the nation's history, Kennedy never became president but he is exiting the national stage as one.
