The Last Lion: Kennedy dies at 77

The last lion is dead. And I am not talking about the feline. I am talking about the man, Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose finger prints can be found on most every major piece of legislation in the United States for the last 40 years. Whether it was civil rights, health care, education, labor, poverty, immigration or an array of other issues that bind us all, Kennedy has left an imprint on all of our lives, rich or poor, black or white, educated or uneducated, that none of us can deny.

Born in 1932, Edward M. Kennedy was the youngest of nine children in a prominent Irish-American family living in Boston, MA. For much of his early life, Kennedy was shadowed by his two older brothers, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, but in time he would surpass them both as politicians by passing more than 300 laws and writing more than 2,500 bills in his 46 years in congress.

However, prior to his success, Kennedy was a rising star in the Democratic Party in 1969, until a tragic accident marred any chances of him ever becoming president. In July, after leaving a banquet on Chappaquiddick Island, Kennedy drove his car off a bridge. He would survive the accident but 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne would not. Following the crash, Kennedy failed to alert the authorities - saturating him in controversy - and angering Republicans who felt he got away with murder. Kennedy would eventually plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.

To Kennedy's credit, he did not run from the anger directed at him over the incident, but rather he took it head on, speaking openly on national television about his mishaps concerning the accident and asking the Massachusetts electorate whether or not he should stay in office - receiving a favorable response. A few weeks later he would be forgiven by Kopechne's mother and in 1970 won the support of his state by winning reelection. For Kennedy, it was just another tragedy in a life that had already seen the death of his sister, nephew, three brothers and his own near death experience after a plane crash left him with a broken back.

After being given a second chance, Kennedy did not step back into the shadows of embarrassment like most would have, but rather he rose above his mishap to pass some of the most important legislation in American history, including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, the COBRA Act of 1985, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and 2008 and the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997. He also became one of the most important and well respected leaders in the United State Senate, due in part to his ability to bring Republicans and Democrats together, not to mention his intense work ethic and his expertise as a legislator. After all of Kennedy's mishaps during his early life, he grew as a person and changed into a man that turned tragedy into prominence.

But what might have been Kennedy's most important trait was his curiosity and compassion for his fellow man.

He came from privilege although you would have never known it by the way he fought for working class folk and those stricken by poverty. He saw no room for discrimination and spent much of his life fighting for others civil liberties that even included being one of the first advocates for gay rights, not to mention being instrumental in eliminating segregation in America. In many ways, the America we live in today is as much a product of Ted Kennedy as it is any other legislator in American history. He has instituted the laws that all of us hold so dearly to our hearts, because they are the ones that guarantee our freedoms, while other politicians are attempting to take them away in the face of their own political gain.

In the 21st century he continued his legacy by voting against the invasion of Iraq, which he called the "best vote" he ever cast. He fought for universal health care, which became the driving force in his political life, claiming health care as a right and not a privilege. And in a time of fleeting hope, he passed the torch onto a new leader, Barack Obama, who he believed embodied the Kennedy ideology that America could always do better. In many ways he was a voice for the voiceless in America.

While Kennedy's life has been marred by as much scandal as it has praise, and with good reason, in the end there is no doubt that Edward M. Kennedy is an American Hero, who took the ideology of his family and turned it into a lasting legacy that his brothers never lived long enough to complete. While Joseph, John and Bobby's faces now live in our minds as nothing more than still life's in a distant time. Teddy's legacy and the laws that he instituted will continue to touch our lives until the end of time.

"The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on." Sen. Ted Kennedy (1932-2009)