Thank
you, President and Mrs. Clinton and
Chelsea, for being here today. You've shown extraordinary kindness
through the
course of this week.
Once,
when they asked John what he would do
if he went into politics and was elected president, he said, "I guess
the
first thing is call up Uncle Teddy and gloat." I loved that. It was so
like his father.
From the first day of his life, John seemed to belong not only to our
family,
but to the American family. The whole world knew his name before he
did. A
famous photograph showed John racing across the lawn as his father
landed in
the White House helicopter and swept up John in his arms. When my
brother saw
that photo, he exclaimed, "Every mother in the United
States
is saying, 'isn’t
it wonderful to see that love between a son and his father, the way
that John
races to be with his father.' Little do they know, that son would have
raced
right by his father to get to that helicopter."
But John was so much more than those long ago images emblazoned in our
minds.
He was a boy who grew into a man with a zest for life and a love of
adventure.
He was a pied piper who brought us all along. He was blessed with a
father and
mother who never thought anything mattered more than their children.
When they left the White House, Jackie's soft and gentle voice and
unbreakable
strength of spirit guided him surely and securely to the future. He had
a
legacy, and he learned to treasure it. He was part of a legend, and he
learned
to live with it. Above all, Jackie gave him a place to be himself, to
grow up,
to laugh and cry, to dream and strive on his own.
John learned that lesson well. He had amazing grace. He accepted who he
was,
but he cared more about what he could and should become. He saw things
that
could be lost in the glare of the spotlight. And he could laugh at the
absurdity of too much pomp and circumstance.
He loved to travel across the city by subway, bicycle and roller blade.
He
lived as if he were unrecognizable, although he was known by everyone
he
encountered. He always introduced himself, rather than take anything
for
granted. He drove his own car and flew his own plane, which is how he
wanted
it. He was the king of his domain.
He thought politics should be an integral part of our popular culture,
and that
popular culture should be an integral part of politics. He transformed
that
belief into the creation of "George." John shaped and honed a fresh,
often irreverent journal. His new political magazine attracted a new
generation, many of whom had never read about politics before.
John also brought to "George" a wit that was quick and sure. The
premier issue of "George" caused a stir with a cover photograph of
Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington with a bare belly button.
The
"Reliable Source" in The Washington Post printed a mock cover of
"George" showing not Cindy Crawford, but me dressed as George
Washington, with my belly button exposed. I suggested to John that
perhaps I
should have been the model for the first cover of his magazine. Without
missing
a beat, John told me that he stood by his original editorial decision.
John brought this same playful wit to other aspects of his life. He
campaigned
for me during my 1994 election and always caused a stir when he arrived
in Massachusetts.
Before one of his
trips to Boston,
John told the
campaign he was bringing along a companion, but would need only one
hotel room.
Interested, but discreet, a senior campaign worker picked John up at
the
airport and prepared to handle any media barrage that might accompany
John's
arrival with his mystery companion. John landed with the companion all
right
< an enormous German shepherd dog named Sam he had just rescued
from the
pound.
He loved to talk about the expression on the campaign worker's face and
the
reaction of the clerk at the CharlesHotel
when John and Sam
checked in. I think now not only of these wonderful adventures, but of
the kind
of person John was. He was the son who quietly gave extraordinary time
and
ideas to the Institute
of Politics
at Harvard that
bears his father's name. He brought to the institute his distinctive
insight
that politics could have a broader appeal, that it was not just about
elections, but about the larger forces that shape our whole society.
John was also the son who was once protected by his mother. He went on
to
become her pride -- and then her protector in her final days. He was
the Kennedy
who loved us
all, but who especially cherished his sister Caroline, celebrated her
brilliance, and took strength and joy from their lifelong mutual
admiration
society. And for a thousand days, he was a husband who adored the wife
who
became his perfect soul mate. John's father taught us all to reach for
the moon
and the stars. John did that in all he did -- and he found his shining
star
when he married Carolyn Bessette.
How often our family will think of the two of them, cuddling
affectionately on
a boat, surrounded by family -- aunts, uncles, Caroline and Ed and
their
children, Rose, Tatiana, and Jack, Kennedy
cousins,
Radziwill cousins, Shriver cousins, Smith cousins, Lawford cousins --
as we
sailed Nantucket Sound. Then we would come home, and before dinner, on
the lawn
where his father had played, John would lead a spirited game of touch
football.
And his beautiful young wife, the new pride of the Kennedys,
would cheer
for John's team and delight her nieces and nephews with her somersaults.
We loved Carolyn. She and her sister Lauren were young extraordinary
women of
high accomplishment -- and their own limitless possibilities. We mourn
their
loss and honor their lives. The Bessette and Freeman families will
always be
part of ours.
John was a serious man who brightened our lives with his smile and his
grace.
He was a son of privilege who founded a program called Reaching Up to
train
better caregivers for the mentally disabled. He joined Wall Street
executives
on the Robin Hood Foundation to help the city's impoverished children.
And he
did it all so quietly, without ever calling attention to himself. John
was one
of Jackie's two miracles. He was still becoming the person he would be,
and
doing it by the beat of his own drummer. He had only just begun. There
was in
him a great promise of things to come.
The Irish Ambassador recited a poem
to John's father and mother soon
after John
was born. I can hear it again now, at this different and difficult
moment:
"We wish to the new child,
A heart that can be beguiled,
By a flower,
That the wind lifts,
As it passes.
If the storms break for him,
May the trees shake for him,
Their blossoms down.
In the night that he is troubled,
May a friend wake for him,
So that his time be doubled,
And at the end of all loving and love
May the Man above,
Give him a crown."
We thank the millions who have rained blossoms down on John's memory.
He and
his bride have gone to be with his mother and father, where there will
never be
an end to love. He was lost on that troubled night, but we will always
wake for
him, so that his time, which was not doubled, but cut in half, will
live
forever in our memory, and in our beguiled and broken hearts. We dared
to
think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy
would live to
comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his
father, he
had every gift but length of years. We, who have loved him from the day
he was
born, and watched the remarkable man he became, now bid him farewell.
God bless you, John and Carolyn. We love you and we always will.
