I don’t know much about Eunice Kennedy Shriver, but I do know that her death is a loss. She and her husband, Sargent, seem to me to be the very definition of public servants. He served in WWII and then held leadership roles in government social service programs such as Head Start and the Peace Corps. Eunice famously started the Special Olympics. I wish I knew more people who had similar ambitions in the real of public service today.
Tim Shriver wrote a letter to the Special Olympics families today announcing his mother’s death. It contained a quote that I have heard before but not known the attribution for. The words are a much more eloquent statement of one of my points about learning to love all of the various prismatic complexities we learn to see in those we are close to.
“the beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image, lest we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” – Thomas Merton