Louisa Livingston Kennedy 1934-2007 Today we sit in the arc of a great American woman, wife and mother, a fiery force of nature who helped galvanize Americans at the dawn of what we now understand as state-sponsored terrorism. Co-founder of FLAG – Family Liaison Action Group, she helped recast the politics of fear into a new humanism in 1979 and beyond. She flew in the face of a major news network which seemed to prefer to focus on hostages as political pawns rather than as human beings. Elegant, strong, and determined, she stunned major news anchors probing her for weakness with her courageous responses, refocusing the debate emotionally and spiritually. Her comment, when asked how she was coping with the potential imminent release of Dad from Iran, was that “her fingers were braided to the elbows” a quip that became the New York Times quote of the day on the day of Ronald Reagan’s Inauguration. As recently as last year, her arrows of truth graced the front page of the Washington Post after a prickly encounter with State Department lawyers, obviously in need of a more compassionate policy. Mom was a collector and interested in just about everything. Her flotsam and jetsam were, sometimes overwhelming for everyone else, but spoke of a life that wanted to be remembered as she carved her unique track through many continents and cultures. Her life was a giant collage of Classical music, amazing photo albums of Yemen and Greece in the 1960’s, Tintin key chains, jambias, masses of books, poetry, and 10,000 things; her eyes were the eyes of a colorist, an artist with an award winning sense of design, although the challenge ultimately, was, what to do with all the curiosities she acquired, for she filled many mansions in the kingdom of her house, most remarkably with correspondence from an enormous number of friends, that sometimes seemed to be piled so high that you could hardly find the phone or anything else – aah the chaos of so much love! Mom’s passing was as remarkable as her life. The daughter of the only American survivor of African sleeping sickness, she taught us remarkable things about dying and in doing so, about life. She reminds us now that we are always dying and being reborn into the presence and fullness of every moment. Perhaps she never finished her book on her founding father ancestors because, in fact, her own life was equally as interesting and full. Who can forget this towering amazon who refused to play tennis on the courts of the Imam of Yemen because of the heads hanging on the poles of the court, or who shooed away Druse militiamen in the mountains of Lebanon because they were interrupting her picnic, or who pointed out the direction of the fighting to American marines popping their heads out of tanks driving into Beirut. During her last week many of her visiting friends commented on the rays of Peace that flooded through her tourmaline green eyes. The nurses had never seen such a steady flow of visitors bearing gifts. Mom and Dad, thank you for giving Philip, Andrew and Duncan and me this beautiful life in this incredible place, with these amazing people that love you. Mom, We will miss you with all our hearts because we love you so much! Peace be with you always! Mark www.louisakennedy.com