Three Famous Brothers Together Again

BOSTON and WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy was laid to rest Saturday on a cold, rainy day. Kennedy himself had chosen the imposing Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help church for his own funeral.

Obama delivered the eulogy, praising Kennedy as "a champion for those who had none, the soul of the Democratic Party, and the lion of the United States Senate, a man who graces nearly 1,000 laws, and who penned more than 300 laws himself. He became the greatest legislator of our time."

Obama went on to say "remembering the last son of the storied Kennedy clan as a peerless legislator and family man who used the suffering in his own life to become more alive to the plight and suffering of others." The President remembered Kennedy as "the baby of the family who became its patriarch, the restless dreamer who became its rock."

Senator John McCain said, "No person in that institution is indispensable, but Ted Kennedy comes as close to being indispensable as any individual I've ever known in the Senate, because he had a unique way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions."

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma played the woeful sarabande from Bach's Suite No. 6. Ma also played as opera tenor Placido Domingo sang Cesar Franck's Panis Angelicus. Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham sang Schubert's Ave Maria.

Former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were in attendance. Vice President Joe Biden and three of his predecessors, Al Gore, Dan Quayle and Walter F. Mondale were also in attendance.

Dozens of current and former members of the Senate and House of Representatives were in the pews. Actors Jack Nicholson and Lauren Bacall, singer Tony Bennett and Boston Celtics basketball legend Bill Russell came to pay their respects.

After the service, the honor guard unfolded the flag and replaced it on the casket as the organ was being played and the bells tolled. The casket was reloaded into the hearse, and family members were on the flight to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.

Well wishers and several hundred current and former Senate staffers and greeted Kennedy's cortege with applause when it stopped by the steps of the Capitol. Wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, embraced many of the people on the lower steps.

At the memorial service held Friday night, Joseph Kennedy II, a former Massachusetts Congressman, brought the room to tears with his speech. He thanked Teddy's children, Patrick, Kara and Teddy Jr. for sharing their father with cousins who were left fatherless. "The truth is that for so many of us, we just needed someone to hang onto, and Teddy was always there to hang onto."

Carolyn Kennedy spoke at the Friday night memorial, recalling the night he died looking out at the ocean he loved so much. "I looked up and there was this one star hanging low in the sky that was just bigger than all the rest and brighter than all the rest," she said. "I know it was Jupiter but it was acting a lot like Teddy."

A large U.S. flag was spread over the casket during the final rite of committal and prayer by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a family friend and former archbishop of Washington. The ceremony ended three days of tributes and memorials in Kennedy's honor.

Kennedy's burial brings the three famous brothers together again. His grave sits 100 feet south of brother Robert, and 200 feet from the eternal flame that burns for brother John, the former president.