At Her Aunt’s Funeral, Caroline Kennedy Was Nowhere to Be Found — While RFK Jr. Showed Up as Pallbearer
I watched the coverage of Joan Kennedy’s funeral with a lump in my throat, partly because I’ve followed the Kennedys all my life and partly because I felt the weight of family, memory, and absence playing out in full view. On October 15, St. Anthony Shrine in Boston held a Mass to say goodbye to Joan Bennett Kennedy, who died October 8 at age 89. Many Kennedys turned up to mourn: sons, nieces, nephews, grandchildren. Among them was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who served as a pallbearer despite long-standing tension with parts of his family. But Caroline Kennedy—daughter of JFK and Jackie—was not there.
Caroline’s absence didn’t escape notice. The daughter of two of America’s most public figures has always walked a line between public duty and personal privacy. In the past, she’s shown up at big family events, state occasions, memorial services. So many assumed she would be present for her aunt. But she wasn’t. Sources say she chose to stay away. (People) Some say her relationship with RFK Jr. has been strained publicly—she’s criticized his remarks on autism, for instance—so her decision to refrain from attending may have had more than one layer.
When I try to see through the public glare and imagine Caroline sitting quietly somewhere else, I feel the weight of what it means to carry a name like Kennedy. You inherit legacy, expectations, scrutiny. You also inherit stories and conflicts you did not choose. To skip a funeral in your own family is never merely absence—it’s a statement, even when unspoken.
At Joan’s service, siblings Ted Kennedy Jr. and Patrick Kennedy led eulogies. RFK Jr., despite controversies and familial tensions, physically carried the casket. Many watched that moment: the man accused by relatives at times of divisive speech, yet here performing one of the oldest rites of kinship. (WBUR) Others in the Kennedy clan embraced, cried, shared memories. The air carried decades of history: love, regret, loyalty, fracture. (WBUR)
Joan Bennett Kennedy’s life was complex. She was once the wife of Senator Ted Kennedy, mother to three children, a pianist, an advocate, and someone who struggled publicly with addiction and private pain. Her death certificate, obtained by People, listed her immediate cause of death as dementia, with a note that alcoholism (in remission) was a contributing factor. (People) For many, Joan’s funeral was not just about an ending—but a moment to reflect on a life lived amid splendor and struggle, in the glare and the shadows.
I feel compelled to wonder what Caroline felt. Did she feel too much? Did she feel that any public appearance would be swallowed by expectations? Or did she simply believe that her silence was the truest kind of respect she could pay? We may never know. But absence is its own kind of presence.
In the days following Joan’s passing, stories circulated of her last public moment: three months before she died, she appeared at the annual Kennedy Fourth of July gathering at the family compound in Hyannis Port. She sat among family in bright colors, waves around her, life gathering around the edges. (People) That memory lingers now as one of her final public breaths.
When Caroline chooses silence, or when a name is kept alive by those present rather than by those absent, we are reminded how family is not only in presence, but in memory. Joan’s funeral reminded us that even in absence, we mourn, we remember, we carry forward.
