Maria Shriver eulogized her mother Eunice Kennedy Shriver today in Hyannis, MA. Reading it gave me chills, especially this part – which made me think of you all:
I’m especially glad that young women are hearing about her, because she was a woman who didn’t choose, and women are often told you have to choose to be this, or that, this kind of woman, you have to dress this way, talk this way, you have to have one opinion. Well Mummy wasn’t like that, she didn’t choose. She let all the different parts of her go out, and that’s what made her unique. She didn’t allow herself to be tamed, or contained. She achieved herself, her true authentic self. The very same woman who made grown men quake in their boots when she stepped foot on Capitol Hill was the very same woman who spent quality time with each and every one of us, making us feel loved, making us believe in our self. She spent quality time with each of those grandchildren you saw here on this altar, building sandcastles, looking for leprechauns, looking for mermaids. She didn’t choose between being strong and soft, complex or simple. As her story goes out this week, I believe that she will become a new torchbearer for women of our time, sending a new message. That you don’t have to be a certain way, you don’t have to fit a stereotype, that over your life you can have a full, complete, spiritual life — a life that is about others and a life that is about family. Her story, I believe, teaches that women are complex and they can live out every simple, single aspect of that complexity.
Have a lovely weekend.
I don’t say this sort of thing often, but: this is a beautiful thought. Thank you for sharing it with us.