Kyle Kennedy, a granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, has died at 42 in Massachusetts six years after a spinal cord injury left her with long-term paralysis and disability.
The New York Post reported that Kyle Kennedy, also known as Kyle Kennedy Kerr, passed away on Sept. 21 at her home in Westwood, Massachusetts.
She was 42. The cause of her death remains unknown. Her funeral was private.
Kennedy was one of 34 grandchildren of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. She leaves two young sons, a record of classroom work, a Boston Marathon finish, and years of disability advocacy after the injury that changed her life.
In 2019 she completed the Boston Marathon. She beat her father’s time by 20 minutes.
The following year she suffered a severe spinal cord injury. The injury, the family obituary stated, “resulted in long term paralysis, disability, and other medical challenges.”
Six years later she was gone.
Before the injury she built a teaching path. She earned a Master of Education from Harvard University, joined Teach for America, and taught for two years in the New York City public school system.
On Dec. 12, 2018, she spoke onstage in New York City during the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Awards.
After the injury she became an advocate for people living with disabilities. She testified at a Massachusetts State House hearing on discrimination in disabled health care.
The Burke Funeral Homes obituary described the years that followed the crash of her health in plain terms:
"The years that followed brought struggles but Kyle fought to maintain her dry wit and determination through it all, trying to be the best possible mother to her sons and caring for her two beloved, ill-behaved Wheaten terriers,"
That is the portrait the family put on the record. Not a slogan. A mother still showing up.
She is survived by her sons Conor, now 12, and Declan, 10. She is also survived by her mother, Victoria; her brother, Michael; her sister, Rory; and her ex-husband, Liam.
Grief had already marked the family line. Her father, Michael, died in 1997 after he hit a tree in a skiing accident. Her infant daughter, Josie, Conor’s twin, died “after a few short days of life.”
Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel married on June 17, 1950, in Greenwich, Connecticut. Kyle belonged to the large next generation that followed that marriage. Famous names do not cancel private pain.
No cause of death has been released. The calendar year attached to her Sept. 21 passing was not fixed in the initial report beyond the date itself. The precise day of the spinal injury was given only as the year after her 2019 marathon.
What is fixed is the arc the family and the obituary put forward: a teacher, a marathoner, a mother of two boys, a woman who took a life-altering spinal injury and still pushed for better treatment of disabled patients in Massachusetts.
Hard breaks test people. She answered hers with work, wit, and care for her sons.
