In some ways, I'm glad not to have known all this. God bless Nancy. This is a hard death for many of us, but she is so wonderful.
It makes it a bit easier for me. I have spent a lot of time with Alzheimer's patient and this really has made me feel that his dignity was always intact, even if his mind wasn't.
Sadly, it's not always like that.
Once I opened my eyes and saw Nancy looking down at me. "Honey," I said, "I forgot to duck," borrowing Jack Dempsey's line to his wife the night he was beaten by Gene Tunney for the heavyweight championship. Seeing Nancy in the hospital gave me an enormous lift. As long as I live I will never forget the thought that rushed into my head as I looked up into her face. Later I wrote it down in my diary: "I pray I'll never face a day when she isn't there of all the ways God had blessed me, giving her to me was the greatest - beyond anything I can ever hope to deserve."
--Ronald Reagan