[AT] Reagan Remembered (by Patti Davis) Off topic but greatreading

[Frank]

you might have liked him but he did me no favors on my social security

maybe this is not the place for politics

Frank
gremaux at tein.net
Central Montana
www.angelfire.com/mt/deeregp/index.html
----- Original Message -----
From: "Danny Tabor" <dannytabor2000 at yahoo.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Reagan Remembered (by Patti Davis) Off topic but
greatreading


>
> --- DAVIESW739 at aol.com wrote:
> > I got this off AOL today it is one of the most
> > beautiful things a wayward
> > daughter could say about her father.
> >
> > Even if  you hated Reagan please read this as it
> > pertains to all of us who
> > are getting  old and may face the same  fate.
> >
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Thanks Walt for sharing this with us. It hits home for
> us young folks to. Not only because I come from a
> tight knit family but also President Reagan (ray-gun)
> was a childhood heroe of mine. Still is. As a young
> boy I was glued to the television grasping to every
> word President Reagan spoke. "President Reagan's on!!!
> Don't change that channel!!!"  Thank you again.
> Danny
>
>
>
> Reagan  Remembered
> > Months Before the Ex-President's Death, His Daughter
> > Shared  Memories
> >
> > By Patti Davis, People
> >
> > What was once my father's office  is now his
> > bedroom. On top of the desk
> > where he rested his elbows as sunlight  slanted
> > through the window, where he wrote
> > his last letter to America announcing  that he had
> > Alzheimer's in 1994,
> > bedsheets are often stacked â?" ready to be used
> > for a change of the hospital bed
> > where he now stays around the clock. When he is
> > awake, which is not that often,
> > he can gaze at the trees outside the window. The
> > other day, my mother and
> > the nurse who was on duty moved the bed to the open
> > doorway so he could look
> > into the back garden, where the sun was making
> > prisms  on the leaves after a
> > morning of rain. "Did he seem to notice the
> > different  view?" I asked my mother.
> > "I don't know," she said.
> > People often ask me how  my father is doing. They
> > want to know if he still
> > recognizes me, if he still  recognizes any of us. It
> > makes me realize that my
> > mother and I have been so  protective of his
> > condition since he became ill â?"
> > almost a decade now â?" that it  has allowed people
> > to imagine he is still talking,
> > still walking, still able to  stumble into a moment
> > of clarity. But it would
> > be a disservice to every family  who has an
> > Alzheimer's victim in their
> > embrace to say any of that is true, and I  don't
> > believe my father would want us to
> > lie. Today, we are like many other  families who
> > come to the bedside of a
> > loved one and look into eyes that no  longer flicker
> > with recognition. It
> > rearranges your universe. It strips away  everything
> > but the most important truth:
> > that the soul is alive, even if the  mind is
> > faltering.
> > My father is the only man in the house these days,
> > except  for members of his
> > Secret Service detail who occasionally come in. It's
> > a house  of women, now â?"
> > the nurses, my mother, the housekeepers. Me, when I
> > am there,  which is
> > often, since I live only 10 minutes away. When my
> > brother Ron visits  from Seattle,
> > or our older brother Michael comes over, the sound
> > of a male voice  seems to
> > register with my father. He lifts his eyebrows. Is
> > it recognition of  his
> > sons? Curiosity about this new male intruder? I
> > don't know. We frequently  arrange
> > dinner around his bed. In fact, it has become the
> > center of the house.
> > Everything radiates from that space, whether he is
> > awake or asleep. It radiates
> > from the man whose life is thinning to a stream, yet
> > flows and follows us even
> > when we drive off the property.
> > In the room next to my father's, my mother  now
> > sleeps in a new bed. The
> > king-size bed they shared for so many years came to
> > feel vast and empty to her,
> > so she had it taken away and replaced by a
> > queen-size bed. Less empty space
> > across the mattress. Yet it's no relief from  the
> > loneliness of sleeping alone
> > after 50 years of rolling over to the person  you
> > love. She still tiptoes
> > across the floor if she gets up in the middle of the
> >  night; her heart forgets that
> > the other side of the bed is empty. I remember the
> > day the larger bed was
> > replaced. I remember the mark on the carpet where
> > the  king-size bed once was.
> > It seemed to say everything.
> > Alzheimer's is a long  series of I-don't-knows. My
> > father's doctor doesn't
> > know how he has lived so  long with this disease,
> > especially after breaking his
> > hip in January 2001. I  think it's the tenacity of
> > his soul â?" he just isn't
> > ready to leave his reunited  family. At a certain
> > point in time, it might all
> > come down to this â?" life is  about learning how to
> > die, how to let go and how to
> > hold on to what is really  important. One thing that
> > was so startling about
> > the TV movie that has gotten so  much publicity is
> > that it was based on years
> > of our lives when my mother and I  were often at
> > war. The script made use of
> > things I had written at that time,  before I was
> > able to put my rebelliousness
> > and political stridency aside. After  reading the
> > script, she said to me, "I'm
> > so sorry about the way you were  portrayed." I think
> > I answered, "Well, we all
> > came off terribly." But the moment  was not lost on
> > me. A single sentence can
> > be a bridge over currents of old  history.
> > My father will leave, we all know that. There will
> > be many people  poring
> > over his political career. There will be debates and
> > discussions about  his
> > Presidency. But as a family, we will be elsewhere.
> > We will walk past an  empty
> > room. We will be assaulted by the silence, the
> > emptiness, and we will, I  think,
> > try hard to listen â?" to echoes, whispers, all
> > those things that don't  vanish
> > when a person dies. That is, if you believe in such
> > things. My father  did. And
> > that might be his most important legacy for us â?"
> > what lives on in the  heart.
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Walt  Davies
> > Cooper Hollow Farm
> > Monmouth, OR 97361
> > 503 623-0460
> >
> >
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