Quote of the Day (Bobby Shriver on His Mother)

“My mom never ran for office, and she changed the world. Period. End of story.”—Bobby Shriver, in a 2004 interview with CBS News, on his mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver (1921-2009), quoted in Carla Baranauckas, “Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Founder of Special Olympics, Dies at 88,” The New York Times, August 12, 2009

The Kennedys, it seems to me, endure, despite their often large failings, in the hearts of so many Americans not because of their wealth, their glamour, or their tragedies, but because they remind us all of two often-forgotten facts: 1) that the marginalized matter, and 2) that the individual—you and I—can make a difference in the lives of others.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver--who died yesterday, after a long life filled with faith and good works—exemplified those beliefs as much as the men in her family (not just her brothers, but her father and husband). In a later age, she might have reached the political heights of those males. But I doubt if she could endear herself to more people than she already had.

As the news spread that she was gravely ill, Daily News columnist Mike Lupica had a classy tribute to her on Monday. I urge you to read it.

At the urging of sister-in-law Jackie Kennedy, Eunice’s brother Bobby read Edith Hamilton’s The Greek Way, particularly taking to heart the line from Aeschylus: “In our sleep, pain that we cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Eunice knew all too well the “pain that we cannot forget,” because the first of the multiple Kennedy tragedies was the one that befell older sister Rosemary, whose mood swings and irritability led her father to agree to have a partial lobotomy performed on her. The procedure only worsened Rosemary’s mental incapacity, and she was institutionalized for the remaining six decades of her life.

But the memory of her sister in better days—especially swimming and sailing—must have planted a seed in Eunice, who opened a summer camp for special children near her Maryland home. That was the forerunner of the Special Olympics.

I searched through dozens of images of Ms. Shriver before settling on the one accompanying this post. So many others showed her smiling, laughing, younger, and in the best of health. But I kept coming back to this one, I think, because it showed what mattered most to her: the children.