Pilgrimage to Hyannis, Day Three: At the Threshold of the Kennedy Compound

I woke at 4:30 in the morning after only two hours of sleep and debated whether to rise or try to rest again. I eventually fell back asleep and woke at 10:30 to find that my sinuses had finally cleared. I could breathe through my nose again, and I felt relief that I might be able to walk without strain. Although I had slept better than the previous two nights, I had missed the hotel breakfast. I asked at the front desk if there was any place nearby to eat before beginning the long walk to Hyannis Port. Instead, the receptionist offered to open the dining room. A staff member unlocked it for me and handed me two plain bagels. I toasted them myself while he patiently waited. I also took some yogurt and a cup of orange juice, and I carried extra yogurt with me for later. I thanked them both and returned to my room to eat. Although I was grateful, I felt a quiet shame for inconveniencing them and resolved that I would wake earlier, eat breakfast on time, and be more considerate in the days ahead.

After breakfast I gathered my printed directions and prepared to walk the 2.4 miles to the Kennedy Compound. When I stepped outside, the sky was completely clear. The light reminded me of a moment Robert Caro described in a PBS documentary about President Kennedy, when an aide observed that the day of his arrival in Dallas unfolded into what they called "Kennedy weather" with skies that gleamed with a kind of clarity and brightness that seemed to follow him. Today had that same brilliance. It felt like a day meant for pilgrimage.

As I walked along Scudder Avenue, the neighborhood grew quieter and more residential. 

The sidewalk ended after Lake Avenue, so I walked carefully along the left side of the road to face oncoming traffic. 

The mood of the morning changed from anticipation to something contemplative, as though I had begun crossing from ordinary space into remembered space. 

At last, I reached Irving Avenue, where John F. Kennedy stayed during the 1960 campaign. 

This was where he awaited the election returns that would make him President of the United States. 

It remains a private residence, and I was careful not to disturb its occupants. I held up a photograph of Jack, Bobby, and Teddy standing there together in 1960 and aligned it as closely as I could with the present view. 

The gesture was small, but it blurred the distance between past and present in a way that felt quietly significant.

From there I continued toward Dale Avenue until I reached the entrance to Marchant Avenue. 

I knew the Big House stood at its far end, but the road was marked with signs reading Private Way and No Outlet. 

I felt the pull of curiosity, but I did not cross the threshold. It felt like standing before a door that was not mine to open. 

Instead, I walked to the public shoreline at Eugenia Fortes Beach to approach the home from the sea.

The wind gathered strength as I walked along the sand, as if the elements themselves were testing resolve. 

I climbed a wooden stairway built over the dune, and when I reached the top, I saw the Kennedy Compound stretched before me. 

I imagined the family gathered there in every season of life, their celebrations, their grief, their ordinary moments, their history lived as a private inheritance. 

I thought of Jean Kennedy Smith, the last surviving sibling, who grew up in that house and whom I met at the JFK Library in 2017. 

I saw that another set of steps descended to the private lawn, but I did not go farther. It was enough to stand there and see it. A threshold does not have to be crossed to be honored.

I returned to the shoreline and sat on a granite rock facing the Atlantic.

I thought of Ireland beyond the horizon and of my own heritage farther south on that same ocean. The feeling was one of longing rather than arrival, the kind that expands rather than resolves. After some time, I began the long walk back toward town. Along the way I met two local women, Stacy and Lesley, and we spoke about the beauty of the coast. Stacy recalled once seeing John F. Kennedy Jr. in person. We eventually parted ways, and I continued on alone.

By 3:18 I had returned to Main Street and stood once again at the entrance to the JFK Hyannis Museum.

I chose not to enter yet. I wanted to return when I could give it full attention. Instead, I went next door to the Hyannis Public Library and sat with a copy of White House by the Sea. 

If the walk brought me to the outer threshold of the Compound, this was the inward one. 

The home opened to me through memory, not distance. There I found a passage describing one of the final summers within those walls:

“Back in 2009, Jean sat at the dinner table at the Big House with Ted and Vicki. Jean began to sing:

‘There will be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover.’

She sang slowly, nearly speaking the words. Next, Ted sang an old favorite. And Vicki sang a show tune. They all knew this was likely their last summer together. Ted had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. He knew he did not have much time. And he wanted to spend it at home in the Big House, surrounded by the people who had known him his whole life. He and Nancy Tenney across the street would catch up together for hours, taking turns sitting on each other’s porches, sharing memories about Joe Jr. and Kick and Jack and Bobby. Jean and Ted liked to tease each other through dinners that last summer. Since back when they were children, the youngest in the bunch, they loved to imitate British accents like the ones they heard as children when they lived in England, when their father was ambassador to the Court of St. James, when it was all just beginning.

‘Oh, Teddy, what are you doing over there, sitting in your chair?’ Jean asked, stretching her vowels.

‘Oh, I am just looking at you, you ugly thing,’ Ted replied, matching her tone. They would go back and forth until one finally laughed. Jean had sold her own house on Marchant Avenue years earlier, but she rented one for a few weeks that summer so she would not have to leave her brother. When the lease ended, she stayed at the Big House. She did not want to leave him. And she made him happy.

Jean and Ted sat together on the porch where their mother had once sat watching them as children, their thick wavy hair now white with age. They looked out at the ocean, listening to the waves roll in, watching the rocky waters beyond the breakwall, following the ospreys as they darted back to their nests.

‘You know the sea, it is talking,’ Ted always said. ‘It is talking to us.

Pilgrimage to Hyannis, Day Two: Where Memory Rests

I woke before 7:30 in the morning after only two hours of sleep. My sinuses had not improved, and my eyes were beginning to water, but I dressed and ate breakfast in my room and prepared myself for the day. I missed the earlier bus to Centerville after not finding my printed directions in time, so I decided to wait for the next one scheduled around 9:30. I opened the sliding door in my room to breathe the cool morning air and gather myself for what I knew would be a more solemn pilgrimage than the day before.

My plan was to visit Our Lady of Victory Parish, the church where the funeral for Ethel Kennedy and Saoirse Kennedy Hill was held and then walk to St. Francis Xavier Cemetery where Eunice Kennedy Shriver, her husband R. Sargent Shriver, Mary Richardson Kennedy, and Saoirse Kennedy Hill are laid to rest. 

At nine o’clock I left my hotel room with printed directions, a rain jacket, and an umbrella, unsure whether the weather would turn before my journey was complete. 

I was still tired from illness and would have preferred rest, but I felt this was the day I was meant to go.

The bus arrived with only a few minutes to spare, and after a fifteen-minute ride the driver dropped me off near the parish and kindly pointed me in the right direction. I was not entirely certain I was walking the correct way until I saw a grotto statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Infant Jesus. 

I followed the path upward and soon reached the parish grounds. It was a quiet and beautiful place. For a moment I simply stood outside and took in the stillness.

When I entered the building, I noticed a framed portrait of Pope Leo XIV in the lobby near the sanctuary doors. 

His expression carried a warm gentleness, as though he were greeting those who entered. I felt a soft welcome in his gaze. I walked silently into the sanctuary, and in my mind the melody of God Help the Outcasts rose like a whispered prayer. 

I did not think of funerals or events here. This was first and foremost a house of worship, and I moved reverently through the stillness as one who is a guest in sacred space.

After some time, I made my way to the cemetery on foot. A light rain began to fall as I walked, but it did not grow heavy. 

When I arrived, I searched first for the resting place of Mary Richardson Kennedy and Saoirse Kennedy Hill. I found them within minutes, and as soon as I did the rain stopped. 

I stood before their graves in quiet recognition. 

I did not think of their final struggles, nor of the manner of their passing. It was enough to remember that they had lived, and that they were once human beings who were loved.

From there I went to search for Eunice and Sargent Shriver and soon found them as well. 

I sat on a nearby stone bench and remained with them for a while. 

I thought about their son Mark, whom I met at the JFK Library in 2016, and about Eunice’s sister Jean, whom I met in 2017. 

They were not distant historical figures but people whose presence had already crossed the path of my own life. Sitting there, I realized I only knew them through documentaries and public memory, and I felt a quiet responsibility to understand them more deeply.

When I finally left the cemetery, I passed Mary and Saoirse again in silence before returning to the road.

 A few minutes later the rain returned, and I was grateful it had waited until after I completed what I had come to do. I had expected to walk the two miles back to Hyannis, but when a bus appeared alongside the road I waved, and the driver stopped to let me on. It felt like a small, kind blessing at the end of the hardest part of the day’s pilgrimage.

I returned to town and made my way to the Hyannis Public Library. 

There I sat with copies of Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver and Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World, wanting not only to visit their graves but to understand their lives. 

As I read from Eunice’s biography, I found the following words spoken by her near the end of her life:

“I am lucky that I experienced the sting of rejection as a woman who was told that the real power was not for me. I am lucky that I saw my mother and my sister Rosemary treated with the most unbearable rejection. I am lucky that I have had to confront political and social injustice all over the world throughout my career. You might say, ‘Why are you lucky to have had such difficult experiences?’ The answer is quite simple: the combination of the love of my family and the awful sting of rejection helped me develop the confidence I needed to believe that I could make a difference in a positive direction. It is really that simple: love gave me confidence, and adversity gave me purpose.”