Over the weekend, the families of Eleanor Mondale and Kara Kennedy announced the death of their two loved ones.

Both women were 51. Eleanor died of brain cancer. Kara of a heart attack, though she had lung cancer in 2003.

Both had led interesting lives, not just because of their famous fathers. Kara was the daughter or Sen. Ted Kennedy and Mondale the daughter of presidential candidate Walter Mondale.

Both had found a place in the world to use their talents, their gifts.

 I'm just a few years older than both women and the shock for me was how fast they had grown up and become women in their 50s. Both were frozen in time for me when much younger, when their fathers were in the news a lot.

I also thought of all the sorrows that Kara's mother, Joan Kennedy, has endured. She has fought alcoholism, breast cancer, the cancer of one of her sons who lost a leg to the disease. And the father of her children, Ted Kennedy, also died of a brain tumor.

"I'm in a state of shock," Joan Kennedy told South Coast Today. "She was my best friend and I think I was her best friend."

(S-R archive photo of Eleanor Mondale)

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