WASHINGTON (CNN) -- He had a name that rang down through generations. Ted Kennedy, far right, with brothers Bobby, center, and Jack in 1948. It was a gilded name in politics, but Ted Kennedy's life was an almost impossible kaleidoscope of outstanding public service, astonishing personal failures and the heavy burden of the unfulfilled legacies and promise of three older brothers: Joseph, Jack and Bobby. "It reminds me, there's a great quote by Ernest Hemingway, who said, 'Everyone is broken by life, but afterwards, some are stronger in the broken places,' " presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said. Ted, the youngest of the Kennedys, became the patriarch of the family at 36 when Bobby -- whose 1968 presidential campaign championed the sick, the poor and the elderly -- was assassinated.
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Ted Kennedy became the patriarch of the family at age 36
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Kennedy had unsuccessful presidential career but found redemption in the Senate
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Even before his death, colleagues mourned his absence in health care debate
In the four decades since that day, the Kennedy legacy was @placeholder's to fulfill, and his to write.