OSTON, Massachusetts (AFP) – Tears, laughter, songs and jokes filled the air on the eve of Edward Kennedy's burial as friends and family held an Irish-style wake around his flag-draped coffin. The evening, dubbed by the family a "celebration of life," was the last event before the Democratic Party giant's funeral Saturday, where President Barack Obama will deliver the eulogy.
Guests joined widow Vicki and other family in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the museum built overlooking Boston Harbor to commemorate the slain president and Kennedy's elder brother.
Speakers praised Kennedy as a patriot, legendary senator, and a man who knew huge privilege, but also terrible tragedy in the assassinations in the 1960s of his two elder brothers.
"Some people born with a famous name live off it. Others enrich names. Teddy enriched his," Democratic Senator Chris Dodd said.
The ceremony opened with a moving prayer that ended with the line: "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
After a stirring choral rendition of "God Bless America," family members and friends took turns to pay tribute to the senator, who died Tuesday, aged 77, after a year-long struggle with brain cancer.
But while speakers' voices cracked with emotion, there was more laughter than crying over the patriarch of the Irish-American clan.
Dodd, who recently underwent surgery for prostate cancer, recalled when Kennedy got him "howling with laughter" by telling him the pain of treatment was nothing compared to the increasingly nasty public debate over health care reform.
Joseph Kennedy, nephew of Edward Kennedy and son of his other slain brother Robert, joked that the only time he beat Kennedy in a sailing race was when his uncle's boat started to sink.
And Nick Littlefield, a former aide, recounted Kennedy's love of singing. He then broke into the song they often sang together, a love ballad.
The evening followed two days of extraordinary scenes in which tens of thousands of people lined for hours to pay their last respects at Kennedy's coffin or to sign the book of condolences.
Although intensely disliked by some Republicans and controversial for his occasionally ugly personal scandals, his death has prompted a rare outpouring of sorrowful tributes across the country.
The breadth of that respect was reflected in the eclectic mix of guests at the pre-funeral wake, several of them Republicans who had overcome ideological differences to form a bond with the Senate's leading liberal.
"He had the Irish talent for story telling and for friendship," said Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate.
"We disagreed on most issues, but I admired his passion for his convictions."
Orrin Hatch, another Republican senator, spoke of his "love" for Kennedy, even if "there are few men with whom I've had less in common."
"I miss fighting with him in public and joking in the background," he said.
Others at the wake included Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California and former Hollywood action actor who married into the Kennedy family.
Also present were the prominent Sinn Fein leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams, who got to know Kennedy when he helped broker peace in Northern Ireland.
The Catholic funeral Mass was to take place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Boston, with former US presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter among those attending.
Kennedy's body was then to be taken to Washington for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, where he was to be laid to rest alongside his slain brothers.