The Senator's Smile.

By David Von Drehle

In pictures taken with family after a malignant tumor was discovered in his brain, Senator Edward Moore Kennedy wore a grin. It was a familiar, reassuring sight. Can he--or we--remember a time before he mastered the brave face? Ted Kennedy was 12 when he first attended a sibling's funeral. By age 36, he was the last of the four Kennedy brothers still standing. He has endured an awesome catalog of trials, humiliations, griefs, terrors and mortifications--always in public, always with his chin up.

To say that Kennedy has perfected this role is not to suggest that his grin is inauthentic. If anyone could sincerely smile through such a grim prognosis, it would be a man who never expected to make it this far.

How threatening can a life-threatening cancer truly be when you've already walked the length and breadth of the Valley of the Shadow? Kennedy was born into wealth, nursed on power and indulged in every appetite--but the one luxury denied him was the illusion of immortality. After his brothers John and Robert were assassinated in 1963 and 1968, a suffocating sense of doom settled over him, and many years passed before he realized that his life story would have all its pages.

Along the way, Kennedy has steadily exchanged his heavy burden of what-ifs for an impressive record of legislative accomplishments. He has lived long enough to hear the growing consensus that his 45-year career would rank among the most consequential in the history of the U.S. Senate.

A malignant glioma is usually deadly, but not always (see page 52). As news of Kennedy's disease spread throughout the Capitol, friends and colleagues across party lines prayed that he would add cancer to the list of struggles he has survived. "He's in a fighting mood," fellow Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said.

But whatever lies ahead, the news from Massachusetts General reminded the nation of a fact Ted Kennedy has never forgotten: the end is always a question of when, not if. At some point, the tempestuous biography of the youngest Kennedy brother will close. But it will do so on a note of completion, rather than tragedy.