Laura Bush: Barbara Bush in good spirits; recalls night after Sept. 11

Former first lady Barbara Bush and former President George H.W. Bush are in good spirits, and, like the author Mark Twain, “the reports of Barbara Bush’s demise are highly exaggerated,” her daughter-in-law and former first lady Laura Bush said in a speech at Harding University Monday (April 16).

The family announced Sunday that 92-year-old Barbara Bush has stopped seeking medical treatment for a lung disease and is now receiving “comfort care.”

Laura Bush said she and her husband, former President George W. Bush, visited her parents-in-law weekend before last, where the families hosted the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. At the time, Barbara Bush was in the hospital and “of course, she was her usual feisty self.”

She said her mother-in-law enjoyed walking her dogs on the beach twice a day in Maine, but in recent years has slowed in that capacity. Last summer, she could no longer walk, “so she wildly drove her golf cart … with the little dogs running behind her for exercise.”

“From both of them, George and I have learned that all we know we have is now, so take advantage of your life as it is and walk on the beach every chance you get,” she said.

The 47-minute presentation that included a speech and question-and-answer session was part of Harding’s American Studies Institute.

Laura Bush reported on her and her husband’s “normal life” in Dallas and reflected on their years in the White House. They are active with the George W. Bush Institute, which she said focuses on freedom: from ignorance through education; from disease through their global health initiative; promoting free enterprise; and supporting dissidents and political prisoners and building democracies around the world. They have been to Africa four times since leaving office to continue the work of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was started during the Bush administration. She wrote the foreword to a book published by the Institute, “We are Afghan Women,” where 28 women share their stories.

Meanwhile, her husband, who had been an “art agnostic,” took up painting after leaving the White House and now paints several hours a day. He painted the portraits of 98 wounded veterans and published it in a book, “Portraits of Courage,” with the proceeds going to the George W. Bush Presidential Center and its Military Service Initiative.

Bush began her speech by placing a bobble-head doll on the lectern she said was bought by a friend on clearance at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia after President Obama was elected. It was a metaphor for the life she had led for eight years.

“When you live in the White House, when you’re a bobblehead inside a bubble, reality can get a little warped,” she said. “Sometimes you have to work hard just to recognize yourself.”

Bush recalled the night her husband was inaugurated. She was very familiar with the White House thanks to her parents-in-law’s term there. After nine inaugural balls, she went to bed at peace knowing 27 members of her family were safe and under one roof.

At the time, she and her husband believed the biggest challenges facing the United States were domestic rather than foreign. One of her focuses was going to be literacy. On Sept. 8, 2001, the first National Book Festival, modeled after the Texas Book Festival that she helped start, was held in front of the Library of Congress. On Sept. 11, she was scheduled to testify to a Senate committee regarding early childhood education.

But as she was getting into the car, a Secret Service agent said a plane had struck the World Trade Center. She watched the towers fall with Sen. Ted Kennedy in his office. That night, she was taken to a secure room below the White House, where she saw the president for the first time that day. After they returned to their bedroom that night, a Secret Service agent ran into their room saying another plane was headed that way, and they had to return to that secure location. It turned out to be “one of ours,” so they returned to their White House bedroom.

“And like all of America, we woke up on Sept. 12 to a different life,” she said.

Bush said she no longer was talking only about literacy but instead was giving a radio address about the brutal treatment of women and children under the Taliban in Afghanistan. She visited a class of female police officers in that country. She was with the president when he made tough decisions.

She said critics described her husband through a “headless cowboy caricature,” and while the criticism bothered her, she accepted it.

“For one thing, I know who I am, and I know who George is,” she said. “For another, this is America, and America hangs on the proposition that what those of us in the White House sometimes perceive as a chorus of complaints – all that blathering and bloviating – is in reality a kind of sacred music, or at least the clanging gears of democracy.”

She said she took comfort knowing that other presidents had made difficult, heavily criticized decisions within the same walls of the White House.

“Yet you have the feeling walking through those rooms that they were mostly decent men who tried to do the very best they could with the breathtaking responsibility that had been entrusted to them,” she said. She even redecorated the Lincoln Bedroom as Mary Todd Lincoln had decorated it.

She closed her address by recounting the night of Oct. 30, 2001, when the president tossed the first pitch of Game 3 at the World Series in Yankee Stadium. Typically a lighthearted event, it occurred at a time when first responders were still grieving their dead. As he was warming up, Yankee great Derek Jeter told him to throw it from the mound but don’t bounce it, or the fans would boo.

“All I could do was hold my breath and remind myself that this is the job of the president,” she said. “But you know what I found out? It’s not only the president’s job. It’s the job of any American – Republican, Democrat, or independent who has the courage to take a stand and make a difference and who’s willing to step up to his or her own pitcher’s mound, to face failure, humiliation, or even mortal danger. The greatest honor of being first lady was having the chance to witness every now and then not just my husband but all of America facing up to fear and shattering change, and standing proud. By the way, he threw a strike.”