Hundreds of relatives and friends crowded a tiny church on Saturday for the funeral of Michael Kennedy, three days after his New Year's Eve death in a Colorado skiing accident.
A handful of congressmen, celebrities and three presidential cabinet members attended the two-hour service at the Our Lady of Victory Church in remembrance of Kennedy, son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Andy Williams sang Ave Maria, and Kennedy's siblings read passages from the Bible and eulogies. Mr Joseph Kennedy, a Massachusetts representative, recalled his brother's fearless athleticism and recounted stories of touch football, a favourite pastime of the Kennedy family.
"I ask now only that we look at Michael truly, not in the glare of a moment, but in the wholeness of his life," he said. "It was a life cut short, a life not without pain and imperfection, but full of hope and high achievement."
Kennedy (39) died on Aspen Mountain in Colorado on Wednesday when he crashed into a tree while playing catch on skis with a makeshift football.
A sexual scandal, his alleged five-year affair with his children's teenage baby sitter, will for ever tarnish Kennedy's public image. Prosecutors dropped their investigation into the scandal in July when the young woman refused to press statutory rape charges.
Letters to the family were read from President Clinton, President Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Ms Coretta Scott King, the widow of the murdered civil rights leader, the Rev Martin Luther King.
Kennedy's son, Michael jnr (14), led a group of siblings and in-laws who carried his father's coffin, topped with white lilies and roses, out of the church as three generations of America's most famous political family mourned another tragic loss.
Michael jnr wiped away tears before being led by his maternal grandfather, sportscaster Mr Frank Gifford and his wife, Mrs Kathie Lee Gifford, into a limousine with his mother, Mrs Vicki Gifford Kennedy, and his sisters Rory and Kyle.
Mr John F. Kennedy jnr, who called his cousins Michael and Joseph "poster boys of bad behavior" in his political magazine George last year, hugged Joseph outside the church. His wife, Carolyn, also extended her condolences.
More than 100 reporters, photographers and onlookers gathered outside the hilltop Catholic church, but were kept away from the private funeral.
Mr Michael Kennedy's uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, his cousin, Representative Patrick Kennedy, his sister, Mrs Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, and his aunt, Mrs Jean Kennedy Smith, the US ambassador to Ireland, attended the services.
Also in attendance were the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, married to Michael's cousin, Ms Maria Shriver, an NBC-TV reporter, and the former governor of New York, Mr Mario Cuomo. The actress Glenn Close attended a wake at the Kennedy compound on Friday, but was not seen by reporters at the funeral.
The Agriculture Secretary, Mr Dan Glickman, represented Mr Clinton at the funeral. Mr Andrew Cuomo, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Mr William Daley, Secretary of Commerce, also attended. Mr Cuomo is married to Ms Kerry Kennedy, a younger sister of Mr Kennedy.
Mourners filled the 450 seats in the brown and white church, and many stood in the aisles, a family spokesman, Mr Brian O'Connor, said. They were handed a prayer card with a black-and-white photograph of Michael Kennedy, and an Irish ballad on the reverse side. It read:
Your troubles are over,
you're at rest with God on high,
but we're slaves and orphans, Michael!
Why did you die?
Michael Kennedy was buried at Holyhood Cemetery in the Boston suburb of Brookline, where his older brother, David, who died in 1984 from a drug overdose, and his grandparents, Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, are also interred.