Ted Kennedy's 10,000 Days

He was the youngest of nine children, the last of four boys.
Edward Kennedy was never supposed to be the leader of a large, powerful political family.
But he before he was a teen-ager, his eldest brother, Joseph Kennedy Jr., was killed in World War Two.
Before he was 30, his next oldest brother, President John Kennedy, was assassinated.
And when he was 36, his only surviving brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, was also gunned down.
The following year, a woman he was with late at night drowned after Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge in Massachusetts.
Because of that accident, he didn’t run for president in 1972 or 1976. In 1980, he tried to unseat the incumbent Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, but lost after a hard-fought primary battle.
Ted Kennedy lived almost exactly 10,000 days after that bitter defeat.
Those final years got off to a rough start. He and his first wife divorced. There were rumors of alcoholism and womanizing. His son, Teddy Jr., lost a leg to cancer. All as the Massachusetts senator was turning 50.
A lesser man would have thrown in the towel. A weaker man would have continued his downhill slide.
Not Ted Kennedy. A spark somewhere inside him was lit. Through the darkness of death, defeat, divorce and despair, a light shone through. And Ted Kennedy saw his path.
He didn’t run for president in 1984. Nor did he toss his hat into the ring in 1988.
Senator Ted Kennedy decided he didn’t need the presidency. He realized he could do more good as a senator. As a father. As an uncle. As a grandfather. And, yes, as a husband to new his new wife, Vicki.
Ted Kennedy became the lion of the U. S. Senate. He led the charge for health-care reform, a cause that appears on the edge of victory. But he was much more than a single-issue legislator.
Senator Kennedy wrote more than 300 bills that became law. Among them was legislation that helped senior citizens, the disabled and the poor.
He was a man who was strong and consistent in his liberal beliefs. But he also knew how to reach across the aisle and make friends with people like Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah.
He became someone to admire. He was an idol to Vice President Joe Biden and a source of inspiration for President Barack Obama.
Ted Kennedy became a leader of the Democratic Party and, most importantly, he became the revered patriarch of a powerful political family.
Edward Kennedy… the ninth of nine children, a man who staring down the abyss when he was 48… made the most of his final 10,000 days.
What are you going to do with yours?