KENNEDY DIES AT 77 KENNEDY DIES AT 77 Kennedy memorial: Friends, relatives celebrate Kennedy's life Photos: Sen. Kennedy remembered Sen. loses cancer battle: 'He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it.' From 'Ted Kennedy: An American Icon': Excerpt on the Kennedy brothers through history IN MEMORY IN MEMORY MEMORIAL AND BURIAL PLANS MEMORIAL AND BURIAL PLANS Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will lie in repose Thursday and Friday at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, followed by his funeral Saturday at a city church and burial later that day near his slain brothers at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Kennedy's family will take part in a private mass at the family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., at noon ET, and 30 minutes later, will travel by motorcade with his body to the library in Boston. The senator will like in repose from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET and from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET Friday. A private memorial service at the library will take place Friday night from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET. On Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET, a private funeral mass for the late senator will take place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, in Boston. The cavernous basilica, built in the 1870s, is where Kennedy prayed daily while his daughter, Kara, battled lung cancer. A burial service at Arlington is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. ET Saturday. Kennedy, who served in the Senate for nearly half a century, will be laid to rest near his brothers, former President John F. Kennedy and former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, on the famous Virginia hillside that serves as the burial sites of others from the storied clan, including former first lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis . At the site of the eternal flame rest four Kennedy family members: the former president and his wife; their baby son, Patrick, who died after two days; and a stillborn child. Robert Kennedy's grave is a short distance away and somewhere near it is the most likely site for Edward Kennedy's burial. "Senator Kennedy spent more days than most at Arlington visiting the graves of his beloved brothers and paying tribute to the fallen men and women of Massachusetts who gave their lives for our country," the statement said. A senior defense official said the Kennedy family some time ago approached the Army to explore the possibility of burying the senator at Arlington, the nation's most celebrated burial ground of fallen military and the resting place of astronauts, Supreme Court justices and other giants in American history. Kennedy is eligible for burial at Arlington by virtue of his service in Congress as well as his two years in the Army, 1951 to 1953. He was a private first class and served in the military police at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, then located in Paris and now in Belgium. Sources: Edward Kennedy's U.S. Senate office; Associated Press

Sen. Edward Kennedy , who began his public life as the prodigal son of a political dynasty and ended as its respected patriarch, died late Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port , Mass. He was 77 and had been battling brain cancer.

Kennedy's family announced the senator's death early Wednesday in a statement.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever," the statement said. "He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it's hard to imagine any of them without him."

President Obama, who spoke to Kennedy's widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, at about 2:30 a.m., described himself as "heartbroken" over the loss of a mentor and political ally who provided "momentous support in my race for the presidency."

"An important chapter in our history has come to an end," Obama said in a statement. "Our country has lost a great leader, who picked up the torch of his fallen brothers and became the greatest United States senator of all time." He has ordered the flag at the White House and all flags throughout the federal government to fly at half staff.

COMPLETE COVERAGE FROM THE OVAL: Obama speaks, reaction

Obama's Republican predecessor, former president George W. Bush, joined him in mourning Kennedy. In a statement issued by his office, Bush paid tribute the resilience of the lawmaker who worked with him on immigration and education but battled him on Iraq and civil liberties. "In a life filled with trials, Ted Kennedy never gave in to self-pity or despair," the former president said.

Kennedy will lie in repose Thursday and Friday at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston before his funeral Saturday morning at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in the Mission Hill section of Boston. He will be buried Saturday afternoon at Arlington National Cemetery.

The bipartisan outpouring of praise and fond memories Wednesday vividly illustrated Kennedy's ability to build bridges across political divides.

Words of admiration came from long time allies, such as Sen. John Kerry, Kennedy's Democratic colleague from Massachusetts, and former adversaries, such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican whom Kennedy defeated in a 1994 Senate contest.

Romney said Kennedy's "charm and sense of humor" won him over. "I will always remember his great personal kindness and the fighting spirit he brought to every cause he served," Romney said in a statement. Kerry struggled to capture the essence of Kennedy's appeal. "No words can ever do justice to this irrepressible, larger-than-life presence," the senator said.

Kennedy's political career spanned five decades and continued even after his diagnosis with terminal brain cancer. After surgery to reduce the size of the tumor in June, 2008, the senator returned to Congress, determined to help President Obama overhaul the health care system — a longtime Kennedy goal.

Expanding access to health care "the cause of my life," Kennedy said in an emotional and unexpected appearance before the Democratic National Convention just three months after his cancer surgery.

Congress will make Kennedy's unfulfilled goal his legacy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., predicted in a statement early today.

"Ted Kennedy's dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration," she said.

Although Kennedy never realized his dream of following his brother, President John F. Kennedy, into the White House, the Massachusetts Democrat became a towering figure in Washington who left his mark on every branch of government.

His early endorsement of Obama helped vault a relatively untested junior senator to the White House. As much as any president, Kennedy helped shape the Supreme Court from his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served longer than any other senator in history.

In the Senate, Kennedy was the driving force behind dozens of landmark bills that changed the social fabric of the nation, expanding the availability of health care, education and housing and advancing the rights of immigrants, women, minorities, gays and the disabled.

In a 2007 speech to the Senate, where he was being honored for having cast his 15,000th vote, Kennedy said he devoted his career trying "to be a voice of what I call the march for progress in this nation."

A gifted speaker and skilled legislator, his career was punctuated by a series of personal setbacks and humiliations — often of his own making. The most devastating came in 1969, when a car that Kennedy was driving hurtled off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, Mass., killing a young female passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy fled the scene and did not report his role in the accident until more than nine hours later.

Decades later, Kennedy still refused to discuss the incident, according to his biographer, Adam Clymer, who wrote Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography in 1999.

Though he disagreed with church leaders on the issues of abortion and gay rights, Kennedy was a devout Catholic who clung to his religion's belief in the potential for human redemption.

Kennedy was the youngest of nine children born to Rose and Joseph Kennedy, a wealthy businessman who served as President Franklin Roosevelt's ambassador to Great Britain. At this outset of his career, he seemed destined to be overshadowed by the triumphs and tragedies of his overachieving older brothers: Joseph, who was killed in World War II; John, who became the nation's first Catholic president before being assassinated in 1963, and Robert, gunned down when he was running for the White House in 1968.

Young "Teddy," as he was known all his life, was expelled from Harvard in 1951 for cheating on a Spanish exam, but after two years in the Army, he re-enrolled. A tight end on the Harvard University football team, he attracted the notice of Green Bay Packers coach Lisle Blackbourn, who wrote a letter asking Kennedy about his interest in turning pro. Kennedy declined the offer, telling the coach he had plans to attend law school and to "go into another contact sport, politics."

After earning his law degree from the University of Virginia and working on his brother's presidential campaign, Kennedy entered the Senate as the result of blatant nepotism: When President Kennedy vacated his Massachusetts Senate seat for the White House, his youngest brother was two years shy of 30, the required constitutional age for senators. So the president arranged for a family friend to hold the seat and step down when the younger Kennedy was eligible to assume the seat.

Some senators were skeptical about whether the president's kid brother was qualified to enter their exclusive club. "I did not particularly like him at the beginning. He did not like me," Sen. Robert Byrd said in a speech just before Kennedy turned 75.

Though the two initially battled over legislation and leadership posts. Byrd ousted Kennedy as Democratic whip in 1971. But the West Virginian eventually was won over by Kennedy's dedication to the Senate. On the day news broke of Kennedy's cancer diagnosis, an anguished Byrd sobbed on the Senate floor, "Ted, Ted, my dear friend, I love you and I miss you."

The unlikely bond that developed between the two underscored one of Kennedy's most striking qualities: his ability to turn even ideological opposites into allies. A committed liberal known for his thundering oratory, Kennedy was also a quiet dealmaker who worked cooperatively with even the most conservative of Republicans.

He persuaded Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., to confirm Stephen Breyer to the federal bench, putting the former Kennedy aide on a path that would take him to the Supreme Court. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, worked with Kennedy on funding for AIDS research and on children's health insurance and wrote two songs in his honor.

Kennedy also helped President Bush win passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, a landmark education overhaul. He partnered with Republican presidential nominee John McCain on immigration legislation.

The same Republicans who made Kennedy a whipping boy and fundraising tool on the campaign trail acknowledged him in the Senate as a friend. "He is famous among his colleagues in the Senate for his warmth, good humor and his simply astonishing ability and will to get things done," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said after Kennedy cast his 15,000th vote.

Kennedy's career as a Senate statesman took off after he abandoned his dreams of the White House. He was drawn to the collegial, clubby Senate in ways that his more impatient brothers were not.

When Ted and Robert Kennedy served in the Senate, there was a "huge difference between the two brothers," recalls Leon Panetta, an aide at the time to Sen. Thomas Kuchel, R-Calif. "Bobby was much more doing his own thing," said Panetta, who later went on to become a congressman, White House chief of staff for president Clinton, and CIA director under President Obama. "Teddy would work on legislation; he would work to get things done in the Senate."

Nearly killed in a 1964 plane crash that left him with a permanently bad back, Kennedy used the five months that he was immobilized, waiting for his vertebrae to heal, to bone up on Senate issues and procedure.

Kennedy spent more than half his life in the slow-moving but tight-knit chamber, serving longer than all but two other senators, Byrd and Thurmond. He was elected nine times by his Massachusetts constituents, usually by overwhelming margins. Kennedy won his last Senate race, in 2006, with 69% of the vote.

He had three children, Edward Jr., Kara and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., with his first wife, Joan, a statuesque blonde socialite who never adapted to the Kennedy family's ferociously competitive and public lifestyle. The couple were divorced in 1982.

By 1991, Kennedy's bachelor lifestyle was beginning to take a toll on his reputation and friends were worried.

After an Easter weekend of pub-crawling with his nephew, William Kennedy Smith, turned into a scandal when Smith was accused of raping a woman who returned to the Kennedy's Palm Beach compound with him, Kennedy asked Senate colleagues to vouch for him. According to Clymer's biography, Hatch told Kennedy "if you keep acting like this, I'm going to send the Mormon missionaries to you," and Kennedy replied, "I'm just about ready for them."

As it turned out, fate had a different rescue in store for Kennedy. In 1992, he married Victoria Reggie, and began to turn his life around. By the time of his death, he was widely respected as one of the Senate's senior statesmen.

"Harry Truman used to say 'If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen,' " former senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican, told USA TODAY earlier this month. "Ted came under a lot of heat — some of it of his own making — but he was not a quitter."