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It is a surprising conclusion, considering the picture that Ethel presented while her husband was alive. In the giddy days of the New Frontier and after, she was known as the prankish clown of the clan, the exuberant athlete ready for any gambol, the nonstop, miniskirted supermom who exemplified all the headlong, slightly manic "vigah" of the Kennedys. Ethel was the hostess who presided gleefully when Arthur Schlesinger Jr. was pushed, fully clad, into the swimming pool at a Hickory Hill party. She was the mistress of a wacky ménage that included even more animals than children—Brumus, the huge Newfoundland of nippy disposition, the wandering armadillo that broke up tea parties, the pet hawk that once landed on Mrs. Averell Harriman's wig. She was the dinner-party cutup who once, in mock jealousy at the attention a high Government official was paying another woman, tossed a candleholder at him—to the obvious distaste of Jacqueline Kennedy, the regal sister-in-law with whom she had so little in common.
There was nothing terribly wrong with anything Ethel said or did, except that she seemed to lack a certain substance. That was the impression she generally made: a little harsh and sharp-tongued, perhaps, but basically a high-spirited, possibly too rambunctious tomboy. In the ordeal of Bobby's death, even people who thought they knew her well would not have been surprised if the weight of tragedy had crushed her.
Yet beneath the surface of her character lay the qualities that were to sustain Ethel Kennedy and all those around her—an absolute dedication to the duties of wife and mother, a total devotion to her Roman Catholic faith, a steely will and discipline. The Kennedy women are the choral figures in the family's saga. Their lot has been to bear witness and to endure. Each of them has done so with a grace and resilience peculiarly colored by her own temperament. Rose, the aloof matriarch, has achieved almost mythic indomitability.
Jackie has traced an esthetic arc of grief, ending with a stylish whirl into another world. Ethel's special triumph has been to maintain normalcy. She has simply carried on, as best she could, the kind of existence that Bobby would have pursued had he lived. Countless other widows have had to do as much, most of them with less comfort from friends, family and position. Yet to acknowledge this takes nothing away from the energetic gallantry with which Ethel has managed it.
Above the fireplace in her Hickory Hill bedroom hang two framed quotations. One, a description of Aeschylus from Edith Hamilton's The Greek Way, reads: "Life for him was an adventure, perilous indeed, but men are not made for safe havens." The other, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, says:
Seek to persuade the sea wave to
break—
You will persuade me no more
easily.