The late senator John McCain’s widow, Cindy, and his children have filed past the coffin holding his body at the Arizona Capitol.
Melissa Daniels
August 29 2018 8:42 PM
The late senator John McCain’s widow, Cindy, and his children have filed past the coffin holding his body at the Arizona Capitol.
Mrs McCain patted it, then leaned over and kissed it in a gathering to honour the former presidential nominee.
The rest of his children then filed past, including his sons in uniform and daughter Meghan McCain who was weeping.
Governor Doug Ducey and his wife bowed and Mr McCain’s former colleagues, Senator Jeff Flake and former Senator Jon Kyl, both touched the coffin.
Mr Flake gave a prayer at the ceremony that preceded a public viewing for the 81-year-old Republican who died on Saturday of an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Mr Ducey said imagining Arizona without Mr McCain is like imagining the state without the Grand Canyon, two things it is known for.
The governor called Mr McCain one of Arizona’s favourite adopted sons.
Mr Ducey said Arizona residents knew they could follow Mr McCain, who served in Vietnam as a Navy pilot and was captured as a prisoner of war, because he was trusted and tested, qualities that are in short supply.
The viewing will go on as long as people are waiting in a queue, Rick Davis, Mr McCain’s former presidential campaign manager, said.
For some Arizona residents, Mr McCain has been a political fixture in the state for their entire lives.
He took office in Arizona in the early 1980s, first as a congressman and then as a senator in the seat once held by senator Barry Goldwater.
Crews spent the past several days preparing the Capitol for the visitors, hauling in chairs, cleaning up the building and assembling dozens of flags.
Mr McCain is the third person to lie in state in the rotunda in the last 40 years; others were Arizona state senator Marilyn Jarrett in 2006 and Olympic gold medallist Jesse Owens, a Tucson resident, in 1980.
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