Since being diagnosed with brain cancer last year, the senator had witnessed an outpouring of love, from friends and foes alike, some perhaps relishing the final moments of a mystical political clan.
The senator's brothers, ex-president John Kennedy and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, knew no such lingering goodbyes when they were cut down by assassins in their 1960s prime.
Another brother Joe, died in a plane crash in World War II.
Amid military honors and gold-leafed Roman Catholic pageantry, Kennedy's coffin was Saturday borne into Our Lady of Perpetual Help basilica in Boston covered in a Stars and Stripes, and a plastic wrap to keep out the rain.
Sometimes, a full-on Irish wake threatened to break out, as friends and family poked gentle fun at their patriarch.
So often it had fallen to the senator himself to deliver a eulogy over the latest fallen member of a family visited again and again by tragedy.
This time, with Kennedy's casket resting beneath the towering dome of the basilica, the duty passed to his two grief-stricken sons, Teddy Jr. and Patrick, and President Barack Obama whom he chose as the keeper of his political flame.
Kennedy, once the chubby young buck of the family, died at age 77 late Tuesday, after nearly a half century in the Senate -- latterly as an ailing old bull raging against the dying of his political light.
Obama, voice thick with emotion, spoke of a "tender hero" who wrote his name into US political history with a pile of laws, after his presidential dreams died in 1980.
"We can still hear him, his voice bellowing through the Senate chamber, face reddened, fists pounding at the podium, a veritable force of nature in support of health care or workers' rights or civil rights."
When he was done, Obama embraced Kennedy's widow Vicki, his hand on the coffin of his political mentor.
In the congregation of the sweltering church, mourners sobbed and dabbed their eyes.
But Obama's address, though eloquent and rewarded with a standing ovation, could not match that of Teddy Jr. -- who unusually for a Kennedy, has dodged the political spotlight.
"He was not perfect, far from it," said Kennedy in a veiled reference to the senator's troubled past history stained by claims of drinking and personal character flaws.
"But my father believed in redemption. And he never surrendered, never stopped trying to right wrongs, be they the results of his own failings or of ours."
Kennedy Jr, put a private face on the public figure who has been part of American political history for half a century.
"He was a lover of everything French -- cheese, wine, and women. He was a mountain climber, navigator, skipper, tactician, airplane pilot, rodeo rider, ski jumper, dog lover and all around adventurer.
"Our family vacations left us all injured and exhausted."
Kennedy's close family had kept their emotions in check during three days of public mourning, but the grief flowed over when Teddy reached his final tribute.
"The fact is, he wasn't done, he still had work to do, he was so proud of where we had recently come as a nation."
"I love you dad, I always will and I miss you already," he said, dissolving into tears.
At various times in the service, former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter also appeared to be deeply moved.
Other dignitaries included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former vice presidents Al Gore and Dan Quayle, Senators John McCain, John Kerry and Christopher Dodd, along with around half the Senate.
From abroad came Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowan, Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister for the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Actor Jack Nicholson, and crooner Tony Bennett were also in the congregation, while cellist Yo-Yo Ma and famed tenor Placido Domingo performed mournful music as communion was prepared.
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