Thanks, Senator, We're Shooting for the Stars

I honor the memory and legacy of Senator Edward Kennedy and offer my condolences to his family and all who admired and loved him. I have a personal debt of gratitude with him. When I was in kindergarten, I decided that I wanted to be an astronaut. My parents told me that astronauts came from the best of the military, especially the Air Force. If I wanted to be one, I should go to the Air Force Academy. I soon had a souvenir booklet of seventies-era postcards from the Academy in my desk drawer. I especially loved the photo of the trademark chapel building against the Colorado peaks and the one of the Thunderbirds flying over the campus. Sometime around fourth grade my mother told me that Academy applicants needed the nomination of their senator or representative. At eight years old I wrote to Kennedy for his endorsement. I kept his response in the drawer with my postcards. I remember how important the stationery felt in my hands with its raised blue print in distinguished script: United States Senate and his signature at the bottom. I also remember his words: “Dear Jonathan… If you continue to perform well in school and receive good grades, I would be happy to support you for admission to the United States Air Force Academy. When you approach your junior year of high school, I hope you will write to me again about your interest…. ” Around seventh grade I learned that my aversion to motion sickness and fast spinning rides did not make for a good astronaut. But, I still remembered when I became a junior that I had a correspondence appointment with Senator Kennedy and I remember feeling nostalgic about my childhood dream of rocket missions to SkyLab.

RoosBlog’s special advisor for political Right-ness forwarded an email last Friday from an anonymous source. It was a pre-mortem reminder of Kennedy’s faults. Titled “The Last of Kennedy Dynasty [sic],” the email predictably focuses on the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick and the oft-cited stories of Kennedy mediocrity at Harvard and elsewhere. It closes with the kind of invective that shows the author to be little more than a crank with poor taste (dare I suggest that civility and discretion are laudable character traits?!): “[Kennedy] is known around Washington as a public drunk…. JERK is a better description than ‘great American.’ A blonde in every pond is his motto. Let's not allow the spin doctors make this jerk a hero -- how quickly the American public forgets what his real legacy is. Let’s keep this [email] going for truth, justice and the American way.”

Remember, there is good reason we eulogize our dead, even those who are as deeply flawed as Kennedy. In the Jewish tradition (as in Kennedy's Catholic faith), we connect atonement and forgiveness with death. The Mishnah speaks of certain types of offenses and the means by which we are forgiven for them in the eyes of God. All things require admission of wrong and reconciliation directly with those we've hurt. Some things are then righted by atonement rituals and the passing of a week; others require Yom Kippur. For the most egregious violations, death is the only means of final and complete teshuva with God. That does not mean we believe everyone becomes “good” when they die. They don't. But it does remind us that the end of a person’s life is the moment of ultimate reckoning between that person, his worst failings, and God. That’s a sacred and serious process that deserves, at a minimum, respect, dignity and decency. We also praise Kennedy at this time because the span between his worst failings and his best achievements offers the promise that we too can overcome terrible shortcomings. No reasonable person can say that Chappaquiddick was anything but a low point and a example of bad character. Neither can one reasonably say the entirety of Kennedy's life and achievements amount to being a publicly drunk jerk.

We eulogize people like Kennedy because, by virtue of their public persona, they often represent at least one thing we hoped for in our own lives. Beyond Mom and Dad, my senator's simple letter gave me the gift of believing I had official support for my boyhood dreams. I never became an astronaut and I never even applied to the Academy. But I still love space movies, especially the typical scene where, in a moment of dramatic tension, the hero asks, "I need a 'Go-No Go' for launch." I never forgot Ted Kennedy's message that if I do well, pursue success and continue to dream of being among the few to reach the highest places, I have the green light to launch. Thank you, Senator, and goodbye. I kept your letter forever.