Kennedy laid to rest at Arlington

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy went toward his final rest alongside brothers John and Robert Saturday evening, celebrated for "the dream he kept alive" for four decades after they perished.

On a day marking the end of a political era, Kennedy was eulogized by President Obama at a Catholic church in his home state of Massachusetts, and his funeral motorcade was later driven past flags lowered to half-staff in his memory at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

"Go now, to your place of rest. And meet the Lord, your God," said the Rev. Daniel Coughlin, the House chaplain, as the motorcade came to a brief stop before thousands of mourners gathered on the Capitol steps and grounds.

A few miles away, on the same hillside at Arlington National Cemetery there his brothers lie, an oak cross painted white marked the head of a grave, and a flat marble footstone bore the simple inscription, "Edward Moore Kennedy 1932-2009."

Kennedy died Tuesday at 77, more than a year after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

One son, Patrick, wept quietly as another son, Teddy Jr., spoke from the pulpit of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Boston. Teddy Jr. recalled the day years ago, shortly after losing a leg to cancer, that he slipped walking up an icy driveway as he headed out to go sledding. "I started to cry and I said, 'I'll never be able to climb up that hill,' " the son said.

"And he lifted me up in his strong, gentle arms and said something I will never forget. He said, 'I know you can do it. There is nothing that you can't do.' "

Rain beat down steadily as Kennedy's coffin was borne by a military honor guard into the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and again when it was brought back out for the flight to Washington and the military cemetery in Virginia just across the Potomac River from Washington.

In life, the senator had visited the burial ground often to mourn his brothers, John and Robert, k