Lauren’s speech:

I’m here to talk about my dad, Jack Kennedy.

I was a complete daddy’s girl my whole life. We were really inseparable. Lately I’ve been watching old videos of us, and it’s strange how quickly you forget the small things — the way someone talked, their mannerisms, their energy — until you see it again. He was present, engaged, funny — all in. He loved being a dad and I always felt that.

And throughout my life he showed up. Not just for me — for my friends too. He treated them like they were his own kids, and to this day they still tell me some of their best memories growing up involve him. That was just how he was with people.

Toward the end of his life he wasn’t always that same person. He’d cancel plans and pull away, and I knew it was because of his addiction. Watching those videos now just reminds me that was always the real him. It’s hard to see how much drugs and alcohol can change someone — how they act and how they show up — but I know that person never actually disappeared.

A lot of people knew my dad from The Continental Shoppe in West Roxbury, a grooming, boarding, and dog daycare he ran for decades. After he passed, I ran it for about a year to prepare it for sale. During that time, people constantly shared stories about him — how long they’d been coming and what he meant to them.

The shop was a huge part of his life — and so were the people he helped through addiction.

My mom remembers nights he’d grab his keys and leave because someone needed a ride to rehab. No discussion — he’d just go. He sponsored people, checked in on them, helped them get back on track when things fell apart.

At his wake, more than a dozen people came up to me and told me he saved their life.

And it kept happening. A friend of mine had to leave work early to come to the wake. She was explaining it to her principal at school, they got to talking, and he paused and said — Jack Kennedy? He saved my sister’s life.

Someone also left a message on his obituary — a guy my dad met years ago when he was going through a divorce. They’d just sit and talk, and my dad spent a lot of time helping him figure out how to be there for his kids. He wrote that my dad showed him how to actually show up — parent-teacher nights, games, just talking to them every day — and even went with him to parenting classes so he wouldn’t have to go alone.

Now his kids are grown and close with him, and he credits my dad for that.

And during all of this — through every story, every person he helped — there’s another part of his story, and it’s an important one.

My dad died from his addiction.

He spent years helping other people get better, but he couldn’t fully get out of his own.

Addiction changes people. Families see it up close. But it doesn’t erase who someone really is. And the version of him that loved his kids and refused to give up on people — that was the real one.

His legacy is the people who are still here because he cared enough to act. The rides to treatment. The phone calls. The second chances.

Recovery works when people show up for each other. He understood that deeply.

So if you’re here for yourself, keep going.

If you’re here for someone else, keep showing up.

And if you’ve lost someone, I understand that too.

I miss him every day.

And I’m proud that so many people are still here because he was in their life.

Thanks for being here.