by Laura Hinds

Created on: August 26, 2009

Late last night, August 25, 2009, Senator Edward M. Kennedy succumbed to the brain cancer that was diagnosed in May of 2009. He exceeded the life expectancy of most patients with this form of brain cancer, namely, a malignant glioma, and he had the added burden of it being a Grade 4 cancer. The facts speak for themselves about Senator Kennedy's illness and the likelihood of his demise. Yet today, with surprising frequency, people are expressing their feelings of being shocked and more often "stunned." Why would people be stunned, you may ask, that a 77 year old man, with a terminal illness die?

The clues that the end was near where in plain sight. Senator Kennedy's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away just two weeks ago. He was not able to attend her funeral. Red flags arose right then and there for those who looked for them. Next, he presented a letter to Governor Deval Patrick and other Legislators in Massachusetts asking that Governor Patrick be given the authority to appoint someone to fill his Senate seat should be be unable to serve. More red flags, and this time, nearly impossible to ignore. Just this week, as President Obama came to Martha's Vineyard and the Press Core was told repeatedly that he had "no plans to visit with Senator Kennedy", it would take someone with their head in the sand not to realize that Senator Kennedy was near death.This morning, people express that they are stunned.

Perhaps the best way to explain this phenomena is that what people are feeling is not so much stunned at the death of the individual, but the realization that an entire generation of Kennedys, and all of the Kennedy brothers are now and forever gone. It is, indeed a watershed moment for us all. For those who have lived through the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, we can recall that we had our moments, even days and weeks of feeling stunned. The survivors of our nation, and even the world had the time to go through all the stages of grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy's death was a long time in coming. Perhaps some amongst us felt complacent. We convinced ourselves that Senator Kennedy would beat the odds. He was a lion, a fighter, it was our due that he should survive. Yet he did not- and not for a lack of will and of trying. Mortality found him and he has gone on, as his Catholic upbringing would have prepared him for, to meet his Maker and be reunited with those who have gone before him.

The explanation for the people who feel stunned is perhaps attributable to the process of having to leap right to the Acceptance stage of grief. There are several emotions that need be skipped over and the human mind reacts with a feeling of numbness- being stunned. It may also be a physiological response to the same stimuli. The lack of time to process, having had our senses dulled to the inevitability.

Perhaps in time, when the funeral has happened and it really becomes a real sense of loss rather than the surreal feeling many people have, the physical and emotional sense of being stunned will indeed pass, and we will grieve, full accept and be at peace, as Senator Kennedy surely is today.

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