Bay Staters struggle to digest the news
For many, it seemed an impossibility, a tear in the fabric of New England life that almost could not be conceived. For more than 45 years, longer than the lifetimes of many of his constituents, the lion of liberal politics and the standard bearer of the Kennedy legacy had been the unabashed, unswerving voice from the left.
He survived his own blunders and rescued foundering campaigns. Time and again, he returned to office, unassailably reelected by the people of Massachusetts.
But yesterday, on the streets, in cafes, in small towns, and big cities, wherever people were, they struggled to digest the diagnosis by his doctors. The news of Edward M. Kennedy's malignant brain tumor was more than stunning; it was bewildering.
Many struggled for words and said they could not imagine the political landscape without him. Others said they would not have to. Kennedy, they said, is a fighter who would beat his cancer into remission.
"I know he's strong. He'll pull out of it," said Betty Peréz, while taking a break from her job as a dishwasher at the A-1 Deli in Haverhill.
A man emerging from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Dorchester broke into tears.
"It's the end of an era," said Mel Wasserman.
With his booming voice and hardy laugh, Kennedy has towered over Massachusetts politics and encamped in the psyche of a state where he was assumed to be a given. His fights for healthcare and education were scripts of the local identity. His appearances at fund-raisers, campaign events, and local haunts were perennial events.
Margie Brown, a 55-year-old nursing teacher who grew up in Quincy, wistfully recalled shaking Kennedy's hand in the 1960s when she was 10 years old.
She was at Jordan Marsh in Downtown Crossing eating a muffin with her grandmother, and he was young and handsome, with his wavy hair and big smile.
"He's been the mainstay of the Kennedy family," said Brown, who now lives in Connecticut, as she sat on a park bench in the Public Garden.
As the seriousness of the senator's condition set in yesterday, conversations took on tones that were at once wistful and wishful.
"Someone who has given 40 years of service - that's pretty remarkable," said Price Blair, 28, of Boston, a postdoctoral researcher, as he was reading in the Public Garden. "It's hard to imagine Capitol Hill without him."
A quick tour of the region yesterday showed lawyers and executives and middle-managers among Kennedy's supporters, yes, but as often there were laborers and everyday workers who live from one paycheck to the next.
While becoming one of the Senate's most powerful figures, Kennedy managed to keep a connection to even the humblest of the state's residents, a fact that won him admiration and good wishes yesterday, even from some who do not see eye-to-eye with him.
"Hey, I like the guy; I'm Irish Catholic," said Ryan Buddy, 60, of South Boston, a Garelick Farms worker as he shopped at a grocery store on East Broadway. "He's a dinosaur, as far as I'm concerned. A lot of people would knock him down, but he's done a lot of good."
Dorothea Grigoropoulos, a South Boston resident for 45 years, said the Kennedy family winds through her own history: Her parents, who were Irish and German, grew up in the North End, where they knew Kennedy's grandfather, John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald, the onetime mayor who used the North End as his political base.
"This is the last of the clan," she said. "Two of his boys are in politics, I know, but they're not like his brothers. His brother was the first Irish-American to make it."
Like any great politician, Kennedy has faced setbacks along the way. But for most yesterday, those episodes seemed like ancient history.
"He's done an awful lot for the citizens of Massachusetts," said Janet Healey, a recent retiree. "He hasn't lived an easy life; it'd be a shame if God took him now."
Ralph Ranalli, Erin Ailworth, and Sarah Schweitzer of the Globe staff Globe correspondent Matt Collette contributed to this report.
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