Thursday June 5, 2008, 2:31 pm
By KERRY KENNEDY

MY father sat upstairs in his study, working in the one room of our sprawling house that we children could not storm into unless it was a matter of utmost urgency. I now know that the big brown desk was where he wrote his books and often drafted important speeches or new legislation. On the day etched in my memory, all I knew was that I needed his immediate attention.

My brother Michael and I had been re-enacting World War II in the ancient magnolia tree that dominated the sloping back yard of Hickory Hill, our 19th-century white brick farmhouse in McLean, Va. As usual, 7-year-old Michael had demanded to be the victorious American, whereas I, two years younger, weaker and not nearly as good a shot, was again assigned the lesser role of the doomed German. The branches of this tree were so perfectly spaced as to accommodate two tree houses, and the Americans held the more elaborate fort that dominated the top branches.

I vainly scaled upward as my brother lobbed down volley upon volley of magnolia pods — which eerily resembled hand grenades but felt more like boulders as they bounced off my head. After taking one direct hit too many, I scrambled out of the tree and ran for the house, bounding up the red-carpeted stairs and bursting into my father’s study without pausing to knock, tears streaming and the white satin bow atop in my hair hopelessly askew.

My father turned from the desk and as I tumbled into his arms, he hugged me and kissed me and told me he loved me. As I recounted my woes he wiped away my tears and told me to go get Michael. I knew right then that justice would prevail. After all, my father was always fair, not to mention being the attorney general of the United States of America!

When we returned, Daddy told me that I could not interrupt, that I had to listen while Michael told his side of the story. Then Michael had to listen while I told mine. I don’t recall the details of what our father then said, but I know his judgment was in some way difficult to accept. Even at my young age, I was forced to see that I wasn’t all right, and my brother was not all wrong. Ultimately, Daddy made us kiss and make up and go to our rooms to read for an hour.

As an adult, I recognize that the lessons my father taught us children mirrored the beliefs he wanted the nation to embrace — that we must build a system of justice which enjoys the confidence of all sides; that peace is not something to pray for, but something everyone has the responsibility to create every day; and that we must muster the courage to face the truth about ourselves as well as those we consider our enemies.

There was no quality my father admired more than courage, save perhaps love. I remember when one night after dinner he picked up the battered poetry book that was always somewhere at his side and read aloud Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.” We listened aghast to the story of the soldiers whose commander orders them to ride into an ambush. They know they will be slaughtered, but they obey the command anyway. My father then explained that he and my mother were going on a trip and challenged us to memorize the poem while they were away. I did not win that contest, but one famous stanza has remained with me:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of death

Rode the six hundred.

You may wonder why a father would ask his expanding brood of what would become 11 children to memorize a poem about slaughter and war. I think there were three reasons. He wanted us to share his love of literature and he wanted us to embrace challenges that appear daunting. But most of all, he believed it imperative to question authority, and those who failed that lesson did so at their peril.

Forty years after Robert Kennedy’s last campaign, I think those are also the lessons he would have liked to impart to all Americans. Facing daunting challenges both nationally and globally, we must rise to meet them armed with courage, love and an abiding commitment to justice, yet girded with a healthy sense of skepticism.

Kerry Kennedy, the founder of the human rights organization Speak Truth to Power, is the author of the forthcoming "Being Catholic Now."