Going the Distance

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Going the Distance
Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver gives everyone a sporting chance.

"Hi, Sarge, how are you?"

"How are you, darling," he replies, taking her hand and bending down to give it a kiss.

"You got up bright and early this morning," she says, softly touching his arm. "Would you like to sit down over there, Sarge?"

He settles into the sofa and is brought a plate of sugar cookies, which he happily eats while his wife continues to talk about her work. Asked why she discontinued the original Camp Shriver program in 1970, she admits that the demands on her life as wife and sister to such prominent public men played a role.

"I got very busy doing other things, with my husband, with my family," she says. "But then things simmered down finally and I was ready to go again."

The fifth of Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy's nine children, Shriver has been through a lifetime of public triumph and public pain with her family. She lost her oldest brother in the war; big sister Kathleen in a plane crash. She lost two brothers to assassinations and has witnessed Teddy's ups and downs. Through all of that, Rosemary, who died last year, influenced her the most. They were athletic partners in childhood, and Eunice would watch her struggle with her disabilities, be subjected to a lobotomy by order of their father and spend much of her adult life institutionalized, a period of Rosemary's life Eunice describes as "when Rosemary went to Wisconsin."

"I think my mother's relationship with Rosemary was an enormously powerful motivator," says Tim Shriver in a separate phone interview. "I think she saw firsthand that Rosemary was being told no, being rejected from emotional and social settings. She saw her father struggle with the fact that Rosemary couldn't compete at the same level. You can't look at your sister and see her suffering and not want to do something."

But Shriver herself prefers to speak more generally. "What do you do when you're 8 years old and you sit down at the lunch table and no one will sit with you because you're 'retarded'?" she says, looking pained. At another point, she describes how much it hurts a child to be the only one on the sidelines while everyone else plays soccer -- left out because of an issue that is mental, not physical. "Do you know what that's like for a child?" she says. She has passed this fervor on to her own children, who spent several years of their childhood working at Camp Shriver. Tim Shriver now chairs the Special Olympics Board. Each summer, all of the Shriver children send their own kids to Potomac to participate in the camp.

"People forget what it was like when she started," Maria says. "There were no options but an institution. My daughter is going to work this week at her camp. . . . My kids have no clue that before their grandmother's work something like that wouldn't be possible."

Maria describes her mother as a feminist, who believed in pushing her only daughter toward success just as hard as her sons -- that included a solo trip to Africa at age 15 to get a first-hand look at poverty and the power of public service -- but who also saw the power that came with motherhood.

Shriver clearly takes tremendous pride in having raised five children who not only stayed out of trouble but who have all chosen to dedicate themselves to public service as well.

"If they ever name something after me related to the Special Olympics, I want them to include my children's names," she says. "I couldn't have done it without all of them. It's kind of unique; usually the parent does something and starts a foundation, but my children have always been a part of what we do, and all five of them have done wonderful things."

All of her children -- including Maria, who flew in from California with her husband and children -- gathered this past weekend for a private family birthday celebration before the big White House event on the official birthday. Shriver's been at the White House plenty of times in her life, but this was something else entirely.

Among the guests were Barbara Walters, who sat at the president's table, Tim Russert, Vanessa Williams and Olympian Scott Hamilton. Popular country music band Rascal Flatts provided the post-dinner entertainment. And a dozen of Shriver's Special Olympians attended as well.

The president was upstaged by his special guest, who thanked him for supporting her causes and broke up the room by adding: "And, in addition to all of that, you have managed to control Teddy -- at least some of the time." At his table, the senator waved his white napkin in surrender.

Shriver also made special note of her sister. "Tonight," she said, "Rosemary is in Heaven and I miss her."