Prayers, song and jokes in Kennedy send-off

August 29, 2009 04:23:56 PM

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Edward Kennedy's family and an eclectic mix of friends gathered Friday around the senator's coffin for an Irish-style wake featuring prayer, song and humor.

The evening, dubbed by the family a "celebration of life," was the last event before the Democratic Party giant's funeral Saturday and burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Guests joined widow Vicki and other family in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the museum built overlooking Boston Harbor to commemorate the slain president.

Numerous senior politicians were attending, including Vice President Joseph Biden. Several Republicans who had set aside fierce political differences to befriend Kennedy also joined the occasion.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California and former Hollywood action actor who married into the Kennedy family, attended.

So did the prominent Sinn Fein leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, who got to know Kennedy when he helped broker peace in Northern Ireland.

The family promised "a celebration," a chance to "celebrate his life with his love of music, laughter and stories with friends and family he adored."

The ceremony opened with a moving prayer that ended with the line: "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

After a stirring choral rendition of "God Bless America," family members and friends took turns to pay tribute to the senator, who died Tuesday, aged 77.

But although voices were cracking with emotion, it was also immediately clear that there was to be as much laughter as crying.

Joseph Kennedy, nephew of Edward Kennedy and son of his other slain brother Robert Kennedy, joked that the only time he beat Kennedy in a sailing race was when his uncle's boat started to sink.

"He also had a great sense of humor. That meant a lot to me," Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican who became close friends with Kennedy, said outside the library.

"There are a lot of wonderful stories, a lot of funny stories."

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