WASHINGTON - Kara Kennedy, 51, who died at a Washington health club on Friday night and was the daughter of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was the family member who might best be known as a survivor.
Diagnosed with lung cancer nine years ago and told she might have one year to live, she fought the disease, had part of her lung removed, underwent chemotherapy, and emerged strong. She had spent much of this year’s summer with her mother, Joan, on Cape Cod, swimming and running.
“It was one of the most wonderful summers I’ve had, and Kara told me one of the best she’s had on the Cape,’’ Joan Kennedy said in an interview yesterday. “I’m so glad that her last summer was such a happy one. It’s just such a shock because she was in such good health. She swam, I don’t know how many miles. She was in wonderful health.’’
So the way her life ended, in a popular health club near her home, leaving behind two teenage children, only added to the twist of tragedy that has become so familiar to the Kennedy family. Ms. Kennedy had just taken a swim in the club as part of her daily workout. She died of an apparent heart attack, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate said in a statement.
“We all know that she is now with my dad,’’ her brother, Patrick Kennedy, the former congressman from Rhode Island, said outside her two-story home in northwest Washington. His voice cracking, he said, “It’s a devastating loss … she was all about her kids, my sister.’’
She leaves a 14-year-old son, Max, and a daughter, Grace, who turns 17 tomorrow .
Kara Ann Kennedy was born Feb. 27, 1960, at a time when her father was campaigning in New Hampshire for his brother, John F. Kennedy, as he ran in the presidential primary.
“I had never seen a more beautiful baby, nor been happier in my life,’’ Senator Kennedy wrote in his 2009 memoir, “True Compass.’’ “Kara’s name means ‘little dear one,’ and she was then and always has been my precious little dear one.’’
Kara Kennedy graduated from Tufts University and worked as a television producer for “Evening Magazine’’ on WBZ-TV in Boston. She later became a filmmaker and, while many in her family could never escape the public eye, she was shy.
“Unlike my father, I felt more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it,’’ she wrote in an article for The Boston Globe Magazine in April. “But like him, I found my greatest fulfillment in showing the needs and successes of others.’’