There are no political sides to choose amid Senator's fight

YOU DON’T have to be a Democrat or Irish Catholic or an American over the age of 40 to be shaken by news of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s malignant brain tumor.

You don’t even have to be an admirer. You only need to be someone whose family has been touched by cancer, that awful equalizer.

And yet, some so detest the fiery liberal from Massachusetts that they can’t muster empathy for the stricken man. Even now. They were out Tuesday, on the radio. On the Internet.

Talk show host Michael Savage, heard locally on WNIS, set a new standard in tastelessness. I wasn’t able to switch stations quickly enough to be spared hearing him cue a tune by the punk band the Dead Kennedys.

What is wrong with some people? Where is their humanity?

Diagnosed with deadly diseases, people cease to be Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives. They’re mortals, all wanting the same thing: another day.

When we hear “brain tumor” at my house, we shudder and say a prayer.

In 1986, my not-yet mother-in-law, a youthful 60, suffered a seizure. In a matter of hours, she was transformed from a vibrant executive to a frightened brain cancer victim. Her prognosis, like Kennedy’s, was bleak. Her family, like his, was in shock. The untimely death of this beloved lady still stings.

Worse than its power to kill, though, may be cancer’s ability to shatter plans, stomp on dreams and make a long life seem uncertain.

“It’s like a gray curtain comes down over you,” remembers Donna Beale, a Virginia Beach breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed 14 years ago. “You think of death.”

Beale, who owns Garden Art Etc. on Laskin Road, says she no longer worries constantly about a recurrence. Still, she finds it hard to accept that she’s cured.

“Brain cancer, that’s a bad one,” she sighed.

No point in pretending we know the senator from Massachusetts; we don’t. But most Americans know his family.

This sprawling, colorful clan burst on the scene in the late 1930s when the patriarch was named ambassador to Great Britain. The press was captivated by the handsome, wealthy family with nine children.

Four sons, five daughters. The dreams of the dad rested with the boys, of course.

One by one, they died. The eldest, a pilot killed in action during World War II. The next, assassinated in Dallas. The third, cut down in California.

Only the youngest remained . An unlikely hero.

There were the youthful antics. Then came the tragic and mysterious 1969 car accident that left a young woman dead. Ted Kennedy’s incoherent explanation of what happened that night is still troubling.

He is no saint, but he’s served 46 years in the U.S. Senate.

At the risk of sounding naive, perhaps Kennedy continues to serve because he wants to make a difference.

A crowd clapped Wednesday outside a Boston hospital as Kennedy ambled into the sunshine.

When he turned from the cameras to hug his wife, his kids and his niece, there was a flash of a bandage buried in his mane of white hair.

Suddenly, two dogs bounded out of the waiting SUV. Kennedy smiled and reached for his pets. In that unguarded moment, he was just an ordinary man facing an uncertain future surrounded by loved ones.

Let him fight this terrible thing. Let him be.

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net