Honoring The Life And Works Of Senator Edward M. Kennedy

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, Mr. Markey, the dean of the New England delegation, for reserving this time in order for us to pay a special tribute to our friend and colleague, Senator Ted Kennedy. If you have been watching tonight, you will notice that the Members with the most seniority have been given the privilege to speak first, which is the way it works down here. The longer you are here, the more you appreciate that. However, I am one of the more junior members of the delegation, and unlike some of the fellows that have been around here forever, like Mr. Markey and Mr. Frank and Mr. Delahunt, I had a relatively short time, 8 years, to spend working with Ted Kennedy. And I cherish every one of those years. But in addition to working with Ted, as a colleague--and Ted could, he could get it done. He could get it done. And I was always amazed at that.

But I also had a different perspective of Ted Kennedy. I saw him in action before I came to this House. I grew up in the public housing projects in South Boston, the Old Colony housing projects. And I can tell you that whether you lived in the housing projects in Old Colony in Southie or Bromley-Heath or Mission Main or Franklin Field, if you grew up, if your family struggled to make ends meet in public housing, no one in public housing had a better champion, a more valiant and noble champion than Ted Kennedy. And that's really the first perspective that I had of Ted Kennedy as someone who was working for our benefit as a family growing up in public housing and in pretty tough circumstances. He was there for us.

I also had a perspective of working as an iron worker for 18 years, strapping on a pair of work boots, becoming a union president for the iron workers. I can say from that perspective as well, whether you were an iron worker, like I was, working in the building trades with a lot of my union brothers and sisters, or whether you worked on a factory floor, or maybe you were a nurse going out every day working double shifts and overtime, or you were a policeman or a fireman, no working person in this country had a more gallant champion to protect their rights and protect the conditions on the job than we had in Ted Kennedy. And the outpouring of love that we saw during the memorial service and the wake and the funeral and even during Ted's illness, it reflected that collective experience of not only the people of Massachusetts but of New England and the United States. And it was something to see.

My mom raised us in public housing, and when the motorcade came along Carson Beach in the shadow of the housing project where we grew up, my mom insisted that I help her down there--she's not as young as she used to be, but I helped her down there and just to give respect to the Kennedy family and to Ted during that last journey, last part of his journey. There is a saying from the iron workers, especially in the steel mills, that the strongest steel comes through the hottest fire. And really, when you looked at Ted's life and saw what he accomplished and the challenges that he had; his brother, President of the United States, taken in violence; his brother, the Attorney General, candidate for the presidency, taken from us in the same way; the huge challenges to Ted. They were unthinkable, unimaginable, yet he worked through it, and not only did he overcome that, but he also reached out to other people and shared a strength that he gathered from those experiences.

I'll never forget--this is my only Ted Kennedy story that I'll relate tonight, but I was a freshman, actually, I was very early in my career as a State Representative, and we had six of our brave fire fighters killed in a terrible fire in Worcester, Massachusetts. We all went to the Worcester Centrum for that ceremony. The families were there and every seat was taken and every bit of space on the floor was taken. The place was filled to the rafters. And that's where I was sitting, far above the floor. But I'll remember Ted's remarks. Here are six families that just lost their loved ones. And Ted Kennedy, you know, you could have heard a pin drop in that Centrum that day.

He basically said to the family--I'll never forget his words. He said, From my own experience, I have found that every once in a while life breaks your heart. And even though there were thousands and thousands and thousands of people in that Centrum that day, in reality, it was just Ted and it was just those six families, and he was helping them through that. And that's a gift.

We all go to wakes and funerals and try to help families through tough times, but I never saw anybody carry it off with the grace and the profound empathy and love that Ted was able to accomplish.

I just want to say that I'm delighted that we had an opportunity tonight to say our thoughts and to share our concerns for Ted's family, Patrick and the entire family. We know what they're going through.

I think the test of all of us who are born on this Earth, the true test of our time, however short it is on this Earth, is whether the work we do while we're on this Earth is going to live after us and is it going to positively affect the people that we leave behind.

By any measure, by any test, Ted has passed that test with flying colors. He has left the power of his example for all of us to try to follow.

I want to thank you, the dean of our delegation, Ed Markey, for the opportunity to share my thoughts. My prayers and the prayers of my family go out to the Kennedy family.

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