The Kennedy family was rocked this week after it was revealed that Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy, had passed away. 

According to JustTheNews, Ethel passed away on Thursday after having a stroke. She was 96.

Her death was first announced by her daughter, Kerry Kennedy, who wrote a tribute to her late mother in a social media post.

Tributes to Ethel Kennedy poured in from other Kennedy family members and friends, and notably from former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

What's going on?

According to Fox News, RFK Jr. wrote a post regarding his mother's passing, paying tribute to "her sense of fun, her humor, her spark, her spunk, and her joie de vivre."

"My mom, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, passed peacefully into Heaven this morning. She was 96. She died in Boston surrounded by many of her nine surviving children and her friends. God gave her 34 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, and the energy to give them all the attention they required. He blessed her with a rich and eventful life," RFK Jr. wrote.

He added, "Even as she declined in recent months, she never lost her sense of fun, her humor, her spark, her spunk, and her joie de vivre. She wrung joy from every moment, but for 56 years she has spoken with yearning of the day she would reunite with her beloved husband."

He pointed out the numerous struggles she dealt with in her life, many of which were the deaths of the ones she loved most.

"God also endowed her with a perpetual attitude of gratitude that fueled her taste for adventure and an irrepressible buoyancy in a life beset by a continuous parade of heartbreaking tragedies."

"Her sunny optimism eventually brought my shattered father back to life following the assassination of his brother and then helped her children to thrive after her husband’s assassination five years later," he wrote.

Social media reacts

Many of his supporters left sympathetic notes and messages for the family.

"Beautiful note. May God bless her soul and may he bring comfort to you and your family," one X user wrote.

Another X user wrote, "We are sorry for your loss RFK. May she rest in peace. Thank you to the Kennedy family for all you’ve done for The Greatest Nation to ever exist."

Clearly, Ethel Kennedy left a legacy for her descendants to carry on.