Forgot what I came in here to post in the first place, an editorial by former Republican Senate Majority Leader 2003-2007, Bill Frist.
The telephone rang in the deep hours of a dark night after a heavy day for our family.
My mother, affectionately known as Dodie, had passed away just a few
hours after my father had passed, the two dying of independent causes.
The call -- the first that my wife, Karyn, and I had received from any
of our friends or Senate colleagues -- was from Ted and Vicki Kennedy.
That is caring and that is love.
Imagine being in Nantucket with your non-sailing sons with Ted, the
master of the sea, skippering his beloved wooden sailboat over from
Hyannis, asking the boys to jump aboard so he could take them on a
harbor cruise and tell them a bit about why his brother John so dearly
loved the United States of America.
He focused time and energy on the young and the importance their lives
will play in meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow.
You see, in our lives Ted Kennedy was more than the legislative lion of the Senate.
He was the young senator I first met as a college intern in 1972 as he
patiently found the time to lay out the fundamentals of universal
health care to our summer class.
He was the proud stepdad who with Vicki beat Karyn and me to every
afternoon high school baseball game while our sons played side by side.
And he was the masterful legislative colleague who never sacrificed his
liberal principles standing for the everyday person as we joined each
other on the health committee as respective co-chairmen to write and
pass bills on health care disparities among the poor, emerging
infectious diseases such as HIV and avian flu, and preparing the nation
and the world to fight bioterrorism.
His death is a loss not just for Massachusetts and the Senate, but for all of mankind.
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