Posted on 04/16/2004 6:37:21 PM PDT by Mo1
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.
Ha, I'm stripping bookcases and it is 93 degrees outside now.They are just a few of my mother's that she had made in 1947 and painted probably twenty times. Lord have mercy!
They are for my daughter, who promised to help me with this project...but she somehow finds other more pressing chores than this. LOL
Wonderful grandkids up there - enjoy it, kiddo's, there's no place like your Gran & Gramps home.
Brokjaw had RWR's last SS agent on the show, during the motorcade to the rotunda, and he told about having to tell the President that they would not be able to go riding anymore after a particularly bad day...he said that the President looked at him, grinned his grin and said, "I know." They never spoke of riding again.
I, too, hope that another book of anecdotes and stories is written about this good and decent man.
Thanks for posting that Loddy .. it's all so sad, but I am glad he had so many loving caring people around him
To the Dreamer, the Romatic, the Lonely.......
Lovely Thoughts
I'm thinking
I'm thinking that while I'm thinking of you
I hope that you're thinking of me
I think that when I close my eyes I see you
In a light so perfect that
Divination couldn't describe what comes over me
I'm thinking that if I could divide myself I'd
give you both halves so I
could have twice as much to think about
or just twice as much of
me and you would be nice
atleast that's what I think
I figure that by this time next year I
might have something else to think about
but right now you're my only thought
all consuming
obsessive so good in that
none psychotic way that makes you think
damn, I think I might love...you
think you might feel the same way
atleast that's what I'm thinking
I think that this thing of ours might
be a little too good to be true
but I think I'll see where it takes me
hopefully it will take me to a place with thoughts
so sweet that it makes my teeth ache so I
think twice about what I'm doing but
don't stop because I know
it might not always be this good
but I can't stop thinking about
what might be around the corner
or thinking about what might be tomorrow
I try to stop thinking about right now
So I can enjoy what it is
But then I think that if I stop thinking about you
what will I have to think about
what thoughts might pervert the perfect ideas
that I thought up while
thinking that maybe I don't deserve this
but then I think that you made me earn it
and I'm glad that we did think things through
before we went too far into self-doubting
thoughts of unworthiness and apprehension
thinking what am I doing
what has happened to me
where am I
when I start to say what do you think
and then think
who are you to think my thoughts and
overstand my opinions
I'm not really sure if what I think is
What I think but I think I've had enough time
To think this over and I think that that's all
I can do
Is think of what could've been with me and you
by lexICON
......Westy.....
Yes I had two to attend too. I need surgery in July it not too bad, and if its cancer free I won't need another for that situation.
.....Westy....
I am feeling a lot better in many ways than I have had it took a long time for me to shake off my depression.
The ironic things is to have depression and know it, it is so surreal!
When I look back over the years many people must have suffered with it but it was never really identified.
It was always joked about......
"My get up and go, got up and went!"
The worst part this starts somewhere in the late 30's but it springs back and forth until you hit you 50's than it has less resilance.
It really is not old age setting in but a chemistry imbalance. So much is being discovered today=
How are your feathered friends doing today?
.....Westy.....
......Westy.....
.....Westy.....
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