Photo: Jeff Schear/Getty; Kerry Kennedy/Instagram
One week after the death ofSaoirse Kennedy Hill, her uncle Timothy Shriver posted his heartbreakingeulogyonline.
His emotional tribute was the latest in the family’s public outpouring of love for the 22-year-old granddaughter of the late Sen.Robert F. Kennedyand Ethel Kennedy.
Saoirse died of an apparent drug overdose on Aug. 1 at the home of her grandmother on the historic family compound in Hyannisport. (The cause and manner of death are currently pending a toxicology repot in Massachusetts.)
She was exceptionally close to Shriver and his wife, Linda, and their five children. “She wanted Linda to be her godmother, so at the age of 18, she got a new godmother!” said Shriver.
He described how they celebrated her 22nd birthday in May, when they had all eaten dinner outside, at Saoirse’s suggestion. At one point, Shriver asked her, “What do you want to learn in your 22nd year?”
“Without a second pause, she answered: ‘I want to learn to love myself,'” he recounted.
Such vulnerable honesty, he said, is her lasting legacy. “But we knew — all of us — that is was our question too,” he added. “And I think we knew that we didn’t know how to answer it; that as much as we wished we could tell her how or to mirror it to her, she could only answer it for herself.”
The question, he said, “is echoing in my soul now.”
Saoirse Kennedy Hill.Robert F. Kennedy Jr./Instagram
Seemingly alluding to the family’s famous stoicism followingthe many tragedies they have endured, he said, “We prize bravery here, but all of a sudden, bravery has become facing our pain, the most brave thing any of us can do.”
‘We prize success here, but all of a sudden, success has become loving ourselves and one another without judgment.”
He also spoke of his own family’s bond with Saoirse, a frequent visitor to their home.
“I felt like she chose us. Your own kids don’t chose you after all. They can’t. But I felt like Saoirse chose me. Chose us. She would come to us with that amazing smile. ‘Welcome home Saoirse,’ I would say. ‘How are you?’ And she would always answer, ‘Better now that I’m with you.'”
RELATED VIDEO:Saoirse Kennedy Hill’s Father Paul Overcame His Fears to Pay Tribute to His Late Daughter
He also talked about her love of the sea, where he said she was “most happy.”
“And that meant she was most happy wearing very little clothing,” he said in one light-hearted moment. “I mean so little clothing that I frequently had to look away. But she didn’t just sit around on the sea. Beaches, boats, breakwaters, buoys. She took them all on.”
She was especially fond of the “HH Buoy,” from which she and her cousins loved to leap into the water below. He suggested they rename the buoy, the “SKH” buoy after Saoirse. (Within a few days, her initials were emblazoned on the buoy.)
Robert F. Kennedy/Instagram
In the days after her death, her father, Paul Hill,jumped off the buoyas a tribute to his daughter.
source: people.com
