Once, when they asked John what he would do if he went into politics and was elected president, he said, "I guess the first thing is call up Uncle Teddy and gloat." I loved that. It was so like his father.

From the first day of his life, John seemed to belong not only to our family, but to the American family.

The whole world knew his name before he did.

A famous photograph showed John racing across the lawn as his father landed in the White House helicopter and swept up John in his arms.

When my brother saw that photo, he exclaimed, "Every mother in the United States is saying, 'Isn't it wonderful to see that love between a son and his father, the way that John races to be with his father.' Little do they know, that son would have raced right by his father to get to that helicopter.

When they left the White House, Jackie's soft and gentle voice and unbreakable strength of spirit guided him surely and securely to the future.  He had a legacy, and he learned to treasure it.  He was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it.  Above all, Jackie gave him a place to be himself, to grow up, to laugh and cry, to dream and strive on his own. 

John learned that lesson well.  He had amazing  grace.  He accepted who he was, but he cared more about what he could and should become.  He saw things that could be lost in the glare of the spotlight. And he could laugh at the absurdity of  too much pomp and circumstance.

He loved to travel across the city by subway, bicycle and Rollerblade.  He lived as if he were unrecognizable, although he was known by everyone he encountered. He always introduced himself, rather than take anything for granted. He drove his own car and flew his own plane, which is how he wanted it. He was the king of his domain. 

He thought politics should be an integral part of our popular culture, and that popular culture should be an integral part of politics.  He transformed that belief into the creation of George [magazine].  John shaped and honed a fresh, often    irreverent journal. His new political magazine attracted a new generation, many of whom had never read about politics before. 

The "Reliable Source" in The Washington Post printed a mock cover of George showing not Cindy Crawford, but me dressed as George Washington, with my belly button exposed.  I suggested to John that perhaps I should have been the model for the first cover of his magazine.  Without missing a beat, John told me that he stood by his original editorial decision.

John brought this same playful wit to other aspects of his life. He campaigned for me during my 1994 election and always caused a stir when he arrived in Massachusetts. Before one of his trips to Boston, John told the campaign he was bringing along a companion, but would need only one hotel room. 

Interested, but discreet, a senior campaign worker picked John up at the airport and prepared to handle any media barrage that might accompany John's arrival with his mystery companion. John landed with the companion all right - an enormous German shepherd dog named Sam he had just rescued from the pound. 

He loved to talk about the expression on the campaign worker's face and the reaction of the clerk at the Charles Hotel when John and Sam checked in. 

John was also the son who was once protected by his mother. He went on to become her pride -  and then her protector in her final days. He was the Kennedy who loved us all, but who especially cherished his sister Caroline, celebrated her brilliance, and took strength and joy from their  lifelong mutual admiration society. 

And for a thousand days, he was a husband who adored the wife who became his perfect soul mate. John's father taught us all to reach for the moon and the stars. John did that in all he did - and he found his shining star when he married  Carolyn Bessette. 

How often our family will think of the two of them, cuddling affectionately on a boat, surrounded by family - aunts, uncles, Caroline and Ed and their children, Rose, Tatiana, and Jack, Kennedy cousins, Radziwill cousins, Shriver cousins, Smith cousins, Lawford cousins - as we sailed Nantucket Sound. 

Then we would come home, and before dinner,  on the lawn where his father had played, John would lead a spirited game of touch football. And his beautiful young wife, the new pride of the Kennedys, would cheer for John's team and    delight her nieces and nephews with her somersaults.

We loved Carolyn. She and her sister Lauren were young extraordinary women of high accomplishment - and their own limitless possibilities. We mourn their loss and honor their lives. The Bessette and Freeman families will always be part of ours. 

He joined Wall Street executives on the Robin Hood Foundation to help the city's impoverished children. And he did it all so quietly, without ever calling attention to himself.

John was one of Jackie's two miracles. He was still becoming the person he would be, and doing it by the beat of his own drummer. He had only just begun. There was in him a great promise of things to come. 

The Irish ambassador recited a poem to John's father and mother soon after John was born. I can hear it again now, at this different and difficult moment: 
 

"We wish to the new child, 
 A heart that can be beguiled, 
By a flower, 
That the wind lifts, 
As it passes.
If the storms break for him, 
May the trees shake for him, 
Their blossoms down. 
In the night that he is troubled, 
May a friend wake for him, 
So that his time be doubled, 
And at the end of all loving and love 
May the Man above, 
Give him a crown." 

We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years. 

We who have loved him from the day he was born, and watched the remarkable man he became, now bid him farewell. 

God bless you, John and Carolyn. We love you  and we always will.