From Martin Weiss' newsletter:
When former President Reagan was first diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, he released a poignant, handwritten letter announcing that he was embarking on "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."
He said "I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this Earth doing the things I have always done."
And for a while, he did just that. But not for long — as time ticked by, he sank into a sad decline.
This past Friday, AP writers Michael R. Blood and John Rogers recounted the memories of friends and family who witnessed it:
In the early years of the disease, said one, he would start to tell a joke, would get halfway through it, and then just couldn't finish it.
His doctors encouraged him to exercise, but when he was on the golf course, he gradually grew disoriented, even as he kept on smiling. They'd get the ball teed up for him, going to the green, but sometimes he didn't know which direction the hole was. His fellow players all loved him so much, they didn't mind.
Until a few years ago, Nancy Reagan often tried to surround him with familiar faces in the hope of reviving some remembrances. However, one former White House adviser who went to meet him said, "he just sat there."
Then as the visit was ending, the adviser stood next to the president by his desk, while the president pointed to a picture of his mother, saying "That's my mother."
"Well Mr. President," the adviser responded, "we're involved in this campaign now, and we're just going to win one more for the Gipper."
Reagan's eyes brightened up momentarily and he uttered just two words: "All right." It was a momentary remnant of a distant memory.
In 1999, Reagan's biographer reported he was still strong enough to rake leaves from the family pool. He would do it for hours, oblivious to the fact that the leaves were being thrown back into the pool behind him by his Secret Service men.
In a March 2001 interview with Larry King, Nancy Reagan said she no longer allowed visitors to see her husband — and even she could not reach him any more. "I think Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was," she said.
Finally, not long ago, a former Secret Service agent recalled Reagan's childlike joy when a Labrador retriever took a dunk in the pool, then shook the water off. "It splashed all over the president, and he laughed and laughed," the agent said. "That was the last time I saw him laugh."
I have been making some drapes, and my back is killing me. I hate cutting out the lining and all the measuring, but I have four sets now ready to go. My serger is misbehaving and I don't have the patience to find out why one of the four threads keeps breaking..so I am limited to the slow work of the sewing machine alone.. :( This rest feels gooooooooooooooooood!
So sad........:(
Thanks, Loddy, for posting this. Now I wish Nancy would write another book. I would like to hear more of his years after he went into seclusion.
Thanks for posting that Loddy .. it's all so sad, but I am glad he had so many loving caring people around him
Perfect description of AD..my mom got to the point where she could not swallow..we were luck to get 500cc of anything in her...I think her pacemaker kept her going longer than she might have. AT 5'9" she was about 80 lbs at the end.