The Legacy


		"There will be no more football with Daddy, no more swimming with him, no more riding and no more camping with him. But he was the best father there ever was and I would rather have him for a father for the length of time I did than any other father for a million years" David Kennedy, 13, in a Christmas letter to his mother
	"My father would certainly welcome our economic vitality and the good it has brought to the lives of Americans. But at the same time, I can hear his voice warning us that the TRUE measure of a person, and of a nation, is found in something more profound that economic well-being...he would be impatient for us to turn our minds and our hearts to the deeper needs of our country (...) 95 percent of high school students who fulfilled Maryland´s community service requirement--the first of its kind in the nation--said they believed they would get involved in volunteerism, after graduation. It gives me great personal satisfaction, as a public official and as Robert F Kennedy´s daughter, to have worked on an initiative that builds upon his vision" "Love, devotion, courage -these are clearly what I think of when I think about my father "Think about the great meaning that those 3 words have: Love, devotion and courage. His love was not selfish but to share with those he loved and those who loved him. After reading these 3 words I remember what Ted Kennedy said about his older brother: "...to be remembered as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it" Kathleen Kennedy
		"We still hear his voice appealing to the best qualities of the American spirit....30 years ago today, I, like so many others around the world,felt pain, despair, a sense of deeply personal loss- and a sense of loss for my country that our troubled land had denied a leader who could bind us together, change course and move us forward" I would like to add that as he could bind the United States together he could bind the family together, the extended family together and that´s why he was so special not only for his kids, but for the rest of the 3rd generation and for the whole society" President Clinton
	"...he [RFK] has a very strong intellectual side of his personality and a moral side..." these were his thoughts about loosing his father: "To a young man or a young woman who´s just lost a parent, that all you´re really thinking about, the fact that the person who was most important force in your life is gone and trying to cope with that can be a very, very difficult thing" He eulogized his brother Michael and said: "I remember after my father died, the desolation I felt, the endless ache of missing him. I discussed it one night with my sister Kathleen, who said "When times got really tough, or I´m unsure what to do, I still talk to Daddy -and he´s there" "...Michael Kennedy fulfilled the greatest wish of all his sisters and brothers-despite any shortcoming or human frailty, to live up to the words of our father: "Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance" Joe Kennedy II