"Saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

[Faygo Kid]

Edward M. Kennedy's funeral eulogy conclusion, June 8, 1968:

". . . My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

'Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.'" http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ekennedytributetorfk.html

[LSparkle]

1. Makes me cry even today ...

Get well soon, Teddy ... We need your eloquence on the campaign trail
and in the Senate!

[JuniperLea]

2. I watched film of this yesterday...

Tears welled up.

I remember my mother crying. She worked on RFK's campaign. She stayed home with us kids the night of the assassination, because three out of five of us had a terrible flu and very high fever. She was supposed to be there that night. I'm glad she was home. She came completely unglued. She called her mother, my grandmother, and they cried on the phone together. My great-grandfather died the next day. We were all in a blue funk for weeks... especially Mom.

[Bluzmann57]

3. I often wonder how different the world would be

Had RFK not been killed and won the election. What a tumultuous year 1968 was. Two of the greatest leaders ever were cold bloodedly murdered; two who changed the world and who would have continued to change the world for the better. I will never ever forget when RFK was assassinated. My mom came into my room and said "Bluzboy, wake up. They killed RFK last night." I woke up stunned. For likely the first time in my young life, I sat still and watched the news. I was only 10 years old and we had held many discussions about RFK both at school and at the dinner table. My mom and a couple of other ladies just cried their eyes out. I just sat and tried to figure out what happened. One side note about that tragedy-I wanted Sirhan dead. I mean I wanted to fry his ass. But my parents convinced me that the death penalty wasn't neccessarily the best thing for him. And that has stuck with me throughout my life.

[Faygo Kid]

4. I was 16, and watching The Today Show, and his California acceptance speech.

I was a big McCarthy supporter, and I turned on the TV and saw RFK saying, "And now, it's on to Chicago." I told my Mom (who was in the kitchen), Damn, Bobby won. Then, the newscaster came on and said, "That was just before Sen. Kennedy was shot."

I screamed. Nothing was the same again. I was 12 when JFK was shot, and I remember it better than yesterday. MLK two months earlier, of course, as well.

Damn is right.

[LWolf]

5. I was wondering the same myself, just this morning.

"Abraham, Martin, and John" was running through my head.

<snip>

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill,
With Abraham, Martin and John.

So many of our best taken violently from us, leaving us with Nixon...and then the Reagan era. The damage done, from my perspective, is incalculable.

[stevedeshazer]

6. That's a moment I will never forget

I was 13. I was watching television at my grandparents' house. My grandfather had suffered from a debilitating stroke just days before.

And, I had seen RFK speak in person in my little town in Oregon just a few days before.

How different this nation and the world could have been if he had lived. Surely he would have defeated Richard Nixon.

Thanks for the bittersweet memory.

[malaise]

7. Too sad

:cry:

Any word on Teddy's recuperation - how is he doing?

[leftyclimber]

8. This happened 3 years before I was born

but I remember my grandmother getting teary about Bobby. She still does, as a matter of fact.

While I didn't experience it, I find myself thinking, where is our Bobby Kennedy now, when things are so bleak?

Where is he?

Please. :cry:

[bobbolink]

10. The parallels between RFK and John Edwards are quite striking.

"Where is he?"

We will never have another Bobby, but I'm hoping that we, as a nation, are ready to hear Edwards.

[leftyclimber]

11. Yeah, I was for him.

Honestly, I didn't vote for him in the WV primary because I couldn't stand the idea of all the "dumb West Virginian" jokes that would ensue. I wish I could have.

[Riddler]

9. A day that I will never forget.

I was in college, and had just turned 21 and was looking forward to not only casting my very first vote, but casting it for Bobby. He gave us all optimism at a time where pessimism permeated the country. He touched more lives in more ways than any other public figure I've experienced, and to this day I can only weep when I think of what his presence would have meant to this country and the world the past 40 years had he been here.

[Faygo Kid]

13. Me, too. Post #4. Cathartic, I guess.

What a completely different world we would have lived in had RFK been president instead of RMN.

[spanone]

12. i remember this day in 68 like it was last week....it hurt real bad

[bobbolink]

14. It's part of what kicked the wind out of the sails of us dirtyhippiecommiepinkobums.

The human spirit is fragile, afterall, and this is part of why we lost the "ooomph" to keep up the movement, as it should have been kept up.

I still don't know the answer to that.

:cry: