BOSTON (AP) -
Eulogizing the 77-year-old Kennedy, who died Tuesday, Obama called the senator "the soul of the Democratic Party" and said that in his personal life, he lived up the expectations as "the heir to a weighty legacy."
Obama led some 1,500 people, including three former presidents, at a funeral Mass for Kennedy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Kennedy's beloved Boston. He said the senator handled life's challenges with a "spirit of resilience and good humor."
Kennedy's son, Patrick, talked lovingly of serving in Congress with his father, saying he'll miss his "wonderful sense of self-deprecating humor."
The younger Kennedy talked Saturday of suffering from asthma as a child and told mourners at Edward Kennedy's funeral Mass about some of his warmest memories.
Kennedy said, "I couldn't have seen it as the time, but having asthma was like hitting the jackpot for a child who craved his father's love and attention." He said his fallen 77-year-old father "will always live in my heart forever."
Ted Kennedy Jr. saluted his fallen father as his greatest source of love and encouragement through tough times.
The younger Kennedy, who lost a leg from cancer at the age of 12, stood before hundreds of mourners and said, "Although it hasn't been easy at times to live with this name, I've never been more proud of it than I am today."
Said Ted Kennedy Jr.: "He was not perfect - far from it. But my father believed in redemption and he never surrendered, never stopped trying to right wrongs, either as a result of his own failings or ours."
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