"From the first day of his life, John seemed to belong not only to our family, but to the American family. The whole world knew his name before he did ...

He had a legacy, and he learned to treasure it. He was part of a legend, and he learned to live with it. Above all, Jackie gave him a place to be himself, to grow up, to laugh and cry, to dream and strive on his own.

John learned that lesson well. He had amazing grace.

He accepted who he was, but he cared more about what he could and should become.

'Mourn their loss

He saw things that could be lost in the glare of the spotlight. And he could laugh at the absurdity of too much pomp and circumstance...

We loved Carolyn. She and her sister Lauren were young extraordinary women of high accomplishment -- and their own limitless possibilities. We mourn their loss and honor their lives ...

John was one of Jackie's two miracles. He was still becoming the person he would be, and doing it by the beat of his own drummer.

He had only just begun. There was in him a great promise of things to come.

We thank the millions who have rained blossoms down on John's memory.

He and his bride have gone to be with his mother and father, where there will never be an end to love.

'Broken hearts'

He was lost on that troubled night - but we will always wake for him, so that at his time, which was not doubled, but cut in half, will live forever in our memory, and in our beguiled and broken hearts.

We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb grey hair with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years.

We who loved him from the day he was born, and watched the remarkable man he became, now bid him farewell.