Kerry's Mother and Her Odd Final Words
Mike Thompson
Friday, Oct. 15, 2004
Asked by third presidential debate moderator Bob Shieffer to describe the influence of his wife and two daughters on his life, Democrat John Forbes Kerry responded:
"... if I could just say a word about a woman that you didn't ask about, but my mom passed away a couple of years ago, just before I was deciding to run. And she was in the hospital, and I went in to talk to her and tell her what I was thinking of doing. And she looked at me from her hospital bed and she just looked at me and she said, 'Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity.' Those are the three words that she left me with."
My mother died 25 years ago, when I also was a mature man, albeit only 39.
It was just after 3 a.m. when I arrived at her home, urgently called there in the middle of a rainy Miami night by her live-in, full-time nurse. Mama was sitting on the edge of her death-bed, grasping at the last thread of life that cancer had left in her riddled body, her palms-down hands braced on the mattress and her feet dangling limply to the floor.
I sat down next to her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and began kissing her sweaty head, now cradled on my right shoulder. A glib young man with a quip for any occasion, I was speechless - mute testimony to the precipitous loss of my mother that was unfolding rapidly.
Marshaling just enough strength to speak, she whispered to me, "Michael, I love you so much," then died.
In listening to Senator Kerry as he recalled his mother's final words, I was shocked by their oddity, and also burdened with this profoundly frightening question:
Why would any mother use her last breath to lecture her 58-year-old son to be honest?
It's shamefull this is a race.
I was shocked how unemotional he was,and how he said she had passed on a couple of years ago. My mother passed away 10 years ago this past August,and it is still vivid like yesterday. Kerry's mother died two years ago next month,but it seems like he really does not think about it much otherwise like most of us we remember ever minute detail of our mother's passing,and our eyes get misty remembering. I see nothing like this with him,his Father may be the reason (cold,shipped him off to boarding school,etc).Just like the NY Times reporter said on PBS after the third debate no humanity in the guy