A choir singing Michael Row the
Boat ashore, Michael Kennedy's
brothers and sisters carried his flower
draped casket.
It was a public and all too familiar
scene, a gathering of the famous
and powerful Uncle Ted Kennedy,
former New York Governor Mario Cuomo,
Senator John Kerry, actor and
Arnold Schwarzenegger wife Maria Shriver,
and sportscaster Frank Gifford and his
wife, Kathie Lee, the parents of Michael
Kennedy's wife.
The funeral was a mix of music,
poetry and a lot of emotion,
both fond and
funny recollections of Michael Kennedy,
but clearly the tragic element of his
life at such a young age.
The eulogy by Michael's brother,
Congressman Joseph Kennedy, praised his
brother's work for the less fortunate
helping to get heating oil to the poor,
for instance.
Michael was one man, Joseph Kennedy
said, but he was 100 points
of light.
A whole nation knows his name, Kennedy
said, referring to allegations
Michael had an affair with a babysitter.
But few know the best of what he did.
Then the hearse carrying Michael
Kennedy's casket wound slowly
through the streets and the highways of
Massachusetts, carrying Robert
Kennedy's sixth son to his grave
in a cemetery outside Boston,
where he'll be buried near his
grandparents and his brother, David.