by Edward M. Kennedy (Author)
(22)Release Date: September 14, 2009
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#8: A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse)
"the greatest lesson anyone can learn"
Senator Edward M. Kennedy's deeply moving memoir is the story Of how the youngest most underrated of the nine children born to Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, through great perserverence, through a long and difficult journey found real purpose that carries out the course his brothers had set. An avid sailor, Kennedy said that sailing helped him, "displace the emptiness inside me with the awareness of direction" and so it could be also said that the direction his brothers left him also helped displaces the void left by their deaths. He not only picked up where they left off in politics but he took on the role of father-figure to all of their children too. While there are hundreds of books about the Kennedys, this is the only definitive inside account from a member of the family, evoking high expectations for candor and revelation into the inner lives of this family as no other. While this book is exquisite in its detail - a testament to Ted Kennedy's love of that paints a picture, telling a story and lighting the dark with humor - it may leave you wanting for deeper introspections into the virtually relentless litany of tragedies that befell its life. Alas, this sailor didn't like to look back and peer too deeply into the darkness he had escaped - even in its memoir - for fear that the darkness might overtake him and engulf him in despair. Keep moving forward, stay ahead of the storm, "I can handle this" seems to have been his mantra and code for survival.At the heart of this autobiography is the message that through perseverance, will-power and fortitude we can overcome any shortcomings, atone for any failures and succeed in our chosen course. By sticking with deaths and telling himself "I can handle this" he was able to survive everything from devastating and accidents, to passing both legislation and kidney stones - and he unwincingly delivered a speech through the pain of these kidney stones in much the same fashion he survived all the pain in his life - by his mantra "I can handle this," "I can handle this." Ted Kennedy even teaches its of the work grandson "Little Teddy," "we might not be the best," but "we can harder than anyone." That, he tells us in his memory, "is the greatest lesson anyone can learn"... "stick with it," through every life hands you, follow your "true compass," "work harder than anyone" and you will eventually "get there."A great sailor indeed.Sailing seems a metaphor for Senator Kennedy's life, and in turn his uniquely American life seems to be a timely metaphor and lesson for how we might endure the rough waters we find America in today, And prevails.
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