Kennedy Family and Friends Hold Wake at Family Estate

A flag fluttered at half-staff against a gray sky over the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod as the family held a wake Friday for Michael Kennedy, who died in a skiing accident.

Family and friends gathered at the seaside house of Ethel Kennedy, the widow of slain U.S. senator and presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, to remember their son Michael, whose love for reckless sports led to his early death.

“They’ve had more tragedies than any family should have to bear,” said Steven Rothstein, who worked at Michael Kennedy’s Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit organization that supplies heating fuel to the poor, and who also worked for the campaign of his brother, Massachusetts Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II.

Kennedy, 39, died on Aspen Mountain on Wednesday when, playing catch with a makeshift football while skiing and videotaping, he slammed headfirst into a tree.

“People have given so much of their love, and we just wanted to thank them,” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, told reporters outside the compound.

“There have been so many people that Michael touched,” Joseph Kennedy said, choking back tears. “All of us just wanted to say thank you to people who helped us as a family get through this period.”

Meanwhile, Tom Walsh, the deputy coroner for Pitkin County in Colorado, said Kennedy’s body tested negative for alcohol and drugs.

“Both the drug screens and the alcohol screens were both negative,” he told Reuters.

Kennedy’s uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and his wife, Vicki, were among the more than 100 people who arrived at the compound to pay their last respects as police kept a throng of reporters away.