The funeral is today and many are remembering her. This is perhaps the best piece on her final years with her husband.
Via Fox News:
For all of Nancy Reagan’s moments in the limelight…first as a Hollywood star and then as first lady of California and the nation…her finest moment was out of the limelight. That was her 10-year long caring for the Ronald Reagan we didn’t know, the Ronald Reagan whose authority and intellect diminished as his mind was destroyed by Alzheimer’s. From all accounts she gave him the same love and attention she did before he came down with the disease. Maybe even more so.
The reason I especially appreciate her final devotion to her spouse is because I, like many other Americans, can identify with it. My parents are going through a similar experience. My mom has Alzheimer’s or perhaps severe dementia…you can’t really be sure which it is until after death. The bottom line is, she rarely recognizes those around her, she hasn’t been able to put a sentence together for more than 2 years, and about three months ago, she lost her ability to walk.
But what she hasn’t lost is the love of the man she married 66 years ago…my dad. I really don’t think the two of them have ever loved each other more than they do now.
Fortunately they’ve been careful with their money and can afford a full-time helper to move my mother around and see to her basic needs. But my father is never far away…eating with her, talking to her, or just silently holding her hand and kissing it.