Posted on 02/12/2010 8:06:52 AM PST by raccoonradio
U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy decided to abandon public office to focus on his personal life and family after watching his father die surrounded by loved ones, the 16-year congressman said in a wide-ranging magazine interview.
Kennedy, who announced his decision not to seek re-election in a two-minute video clip, told Rhode Island Monthly he decided to let go of his House seat at Christmas after spending the fall reflecting on the death of U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
“It’s pretty simple in this respect: I went through something that caused me a great deal of soul searching and self-reflection,” Kennedy said. “Right now, a personal life is of greater value. Emotional connections that are real and loving and personal just trump everything else.”
Kennedy appears on the cover of the magazine’s March edition. The story’s author, Mark Arsenault, this morning told WPRO-AM host John DiPietro he believes Kennedy wants to have a family.
“That certainly goes into his thinking. He stood around his father’s death bed and there were a lot of people there,” Arsenault said. “He’s 42 years old and never been married and I think at some point he would like to have a family.”
In the interview, Kennedy said he became closer to his brother, Ted Jr., and sister, Kara, during his father’s dying days. He also said he could not imagine dying alone.
“I can’t imagine if I had a year to live and I didn’t have kids. All the legislative accomplishments in the world wouldn’t matter,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy also described the time he spent with his father after his brain cancer diagnosis in May 2008.
“I’ll never forget what he said to me (in late summer, 2008.) He said, ‘Can you stay at the house with me and just clear your schedule,’ ” Kennedy said. “We had a couple of weeks. I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life. His just asking me to be there was the greatest gift he ever gave me in his life.”
Kennedy told the magazine he is not sure what’s next for him, but he wants to model the next chapter of his life after his late aunt, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics. Shriver died shortly before her younger brother, Ted, last August.
“Service is in my future. I know it as fact that service is an essential part to maintaining your sobriety,” he said.
Kennedy added: “There’s a hole in the soul that we all try to fill, sometimes with the wrong things, like booze or drugs. Society would tell us to fill it with consumerism. But its only really filled through love and service, by serving a high purpose. By doing God’s will.”
Yea right, civil service government handout maybe or did daddy's inheritance come though?
I am losing.
Kennedys don't know how to refect or they would have changed their way of living a couple of generations ago..
In nomine Patrick, who's fully useless, et spiritus distillatus (hic!), I'll drink to that...
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