Kennedy’s Long Journey Home *updated*

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Boston, August 29, 2009

It’s a strange feeling here in Boston, seeing the streets lined with people waiting to see the funeral procession weave by on this dreary, wet Saturday morning. There is definitely a sense that an era is over.

The list of dignitaries in attendance is too long to mention but suffice it to say they are all here. And yes, Secretary of State Clinton and President Clinton are also in attendance of course. The funeral is taking place now and I have been watching on the television and while it’s sad, it’s also quite moving.

[**see updated photos and links below**]

(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

It’s touching to watch all the people lined up on the streets and hear why they are there, weathering the downpour to pay their last respects as the motorcades go by:

The steady, gray rain could not keep Maria Rota from standing alone this morning on Tremont Street, bundled in a red hooded raincoat and clutching a sign that said: “Thanks Kennedy.”
And rain did not deter Kathy Hanson, 64, a retired actuary from the South End who donned a waterproof running suit and umbrella so she could stand on a street corner while the funeral procession passed.
“Doesn’t bother me,” Hanson said of the rain, evoking one of Kennedy’s passions. “I’m a sailor, too.”
Perhaps Anita Harrison, 47, put it best as she stood near the basilica in Mission Hill and clutched a photograph of her family with Senator Edward M. Kennedy from the Million Mom March.
“If there had been a blizzard,” Harrison said. “I would have been here.”

Hundreds lined the five-mile route along the funeral procession, from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester to the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Mission Hill. They came to say one final good-bye to their senator, a man many had never met.

In the red rain coat on Tremont Street, Rota spent 3 1/2 hours Thursday waiting in line to file past the senator’s casket at the library, but she wanted to come again.

“I just wanted to say think you and bear witness to a great American,” said Rota of Milton. “A courageous leader and person who made such a proud difference to so many people’s lives.”

[snip]

“I had to come out,” said Shona Jackson, a 41-year-old office assistant from Malden, who had never met the senator. “I went to the library on Thursday before he arrived, but I just had to be here.”

Cinde Warmington traveled 2 1/2 hours from Gilford, N.H. She carried a green poster that said, “Keep the dream alive, health care for all.”

“Long ago, I said I would be here to stand by the road,” said Warmington, a health care attorney. “He fought for health care and that’s what we need. I wish he could have been alive to see health care reform happen.”

“The Kennedys are Massachusetts royalty,” said Joe Davis, 49, of Roxbury, who also attended the wake at the library. “They were raised having the people in mind.”

From South Boston, Gregg Donovan brought his 2-year-old son, Andrew, barefoot and in pajamas to stand on the street, pointing as the motorcade rumbled by.

“We’re going to witness history,” Donovan said. “At least I can tell him later on that he was here.”
On Tremont Street, three bomb sniffing dogs — two German shepherds and a Labrador — did their work.

Standing under a tree near Massachusetts Avenue, Pedro N. Cuenca wore a tan newspaperman’s hat and a trench coat. Cuenca is editor of La Semana, a weekly Spanish language newspaper in Boston that devoted its most recent cover to a picture of the three Kennedy brothers — Ted, Bobby, and Jack. The headline read: “Together Again.”
“I want to thank him for all that he has done and try to continue his inspiration for years to come,” Cuenca said.

People wait outside along the motorcade route to the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help where Kennedy's funeral will take place

Secretary Clinton and VP Biden inside the Basilica, August 29, 2009

(Photo by Brian Snyder-Pool/Getty Images)

Sargent Shriver and his son, Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Sun. August 29, 2009 (Photo by Brian Snyder-Pool/Getty Images)

Secretary Clinton hugs Vicki Reggie Kennedy during the funeral (REUTERS/Jason Reed)

Godspeed, Ted!

UPDATE: This is a very touching article about the men and women who volunteered to sit through the day and night during Senator Kennedy’s wake at the JFK Library/Museum- some were former staff, some were families of those who died on 9/11, etc. but all were people whose life had been touched in some way by Ted Kennedy. And here is a bit about the type of brain cancer that Senator Kennedy had.

UPDATEII: Ted Kennedy’s funeral procession leaves MA and all along the way people are lined up in the pouring rain to bid him farewell.

UPDATE III: A nice look back at Ted Kennedy’s uncompromising, unwavering support of gay rights long before it was fashionable [for some] to support *full* equality.

These two photos at Arlington National Cemetery are just heartbreaking:

(Photo:PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

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