Although his final year was darkened by scandal, Michael Kennedy was mourned Saturday by his famous family as a loving father and a force for public good.
"A whole nation knows his name, but few know the best of what he did," U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II said. "Michael was one man, but he was 100 points of light."Mourners arriving for the funeral of the sixth of 11 children born to the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy were given cards with Michael's picture. It included the text of an Irish ballad that lamented "Oh! why did you leave us Michael, why did you die?"
Kennedy, 39, was killed New Year's Eve in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colo.
Allegations last year that he had an affair with an underage baby sitter added to the history of scandal that has tainted his family's image of public service.
Joseph Kennedy, who remained close to Michael after withdrawing from the Massachusetts governor's race this year, was among pallbearers who carried the casket, covered in white roses and lilies, up the church steps. Other family members, who had arrived in three chartered buses from the Kennedy family home in Hyannis Port, formed lines for the casket to pass through.
All of Michael Kennedy's surviving brothers and sisters, along with friends and relatives, packed the oak pews of Our Lady of Victory Church. His estranged wife, Victoria Gifford Kennedy, accompanied Ethel Kennedy into the church.
Among the other mourners were former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, father of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, whose wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, was Michael Kennedy's sister; shoe designer Kenneth Cole; Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts; Secretary of Commerce William Daley; Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, Kennedy's cousin. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, a friend of the Kennedys, represented President Clinton.
During the eulogy, Joseph Kennedy addressed Michael's three children, telling them to remember their father through prayer.
"To little Michael, to Kyle and Rory, you can still talk to your father," he said.
Talk-show host Kathie Lee Gifford helped escort Kyle, 13, and Rory, 10, granddaughters of her husband, sportscaster Frank Gifford. Fourteen-year-old Michael Jr. was a pallbearer.
During the private service, Michael Kennedy was praised for accomplishments.
He was campaign manager in his uncle Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's tough 1994 re-election campaign against Mitt Romney, son of former Michigan Gov. George Romney.
He also was active in charity efforts in Massachusetts and Africa. He worked to get American companies to invest in Angola and South Africa, and gave seed money to open a Catholic university in Angola, which has said it will name a new library after him.
A Harvard graduate, Kennedy had proved himself a businessman as chairman of Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit company providing home heating fuel to the poor and shelter to the homeless.