She swam. Swimming had been one of her competencies since childhood, and it remained a part of her life at Saint Coletta. Eunice, who had always shared her sister’s love of the water, later recalled watching Rosemary in the water and seeing something of the person she had known before — the athlete, the participant, the woman who could move through an element and feel capable.
As the years passed, the Kennedy family members who eventually returned to Rosemary’s life brought her into the larger world in limited ways. She visited Palm Beach, where the Kennedy family had a compound, during annual trips. She visited Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, the summer gathering place of the family. She was present at family events, wearing summery dresses in family photographs, swimming with cousins and nieces and nephews who had grown up without knowing her.
These visits were not without difficulty. By multiple accounts, Rosemary’s behavior could be unpredictable — she could become agitated, could strike out physically, could move from apparent contentment to distress without external cause that observers could identify. This volatility was one of the enduring consequences of the surgery: the frontal lobes’ role in regulating emotional responses had been compromised, and what remained could not always manage the stimulation of large family gatherings.
But the visits continued. Eunice in particular visited regularly, and by accounts from people who knew them, worked to maintain a relationship with her sister that acknowledged Rosemary as a person rather than as a memory of loss.