I'd feel the same way if it were my husband in the sanitarium, regardless of whether he was comfortable there due to striking friendships, etc. It's no one else's business and certainly not up to me to publicize. It's a matter of respect for a person who can no longer look out for him or herself.
absolutely, mph...
my MIL was in nursing homes due to dementia...
she certainly was not a 'famous' person (if by no other reason than familial 'connection') and knowing her as i did, she would be totally APPALLED if her condition were to be used for media fodder in any way
think about sandra day o'connor's husband BEFORE his alzheimers....does anyone remotely think he would appreciate his condition being exploited in such a way?
just horrible.
i'm not a huge fan of nancy reagan, but give her major props for protecting and defending the dignity of her husband while he suffered this horrible disease
cbsnews.com
"I suppose it helped. But then, as you grow older, you know, on their part, as they grew older," says Nancy. "It was a hard time. But things change. And you begin to remember just the good times and not the bad times.”
Today, Patti, the Reagan's daughter, is often at her mother’s side. She has written about her father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, and its effects on her mother: "My mother's eyes are frequently such deep wells that I have to look away."
“I think she means that when she looks at me, she sees a deep sadness,” Nancy says.
Patti also writes about the eyes of Alzheimer’s patients: “In the early stages of Alzheimer’s, the eyes have a weariness, a veil of fear. I used to see my father's eyes simultaneously plead and hold firm. Slowly, sometimes over months, sometimes over years, the eyes stop pleading … A resignation, an acceptance of distance, strangeness, a life far from home. You know the look when you see it. And the only mercy is that the fear seems to have subsided."
“It's true. It's true,” says Nancy. “A whole different look in eyes. Whole different look. You know, it really, it's been said often, of course, and it's true. It really is the long, long goodbye.”
Ronald Reagan doesn't know about Nancy's reconciliation with Patti.
“But Patti feels, and she may be right - that somehow, he does know,” says Nancy. “And with Alzheimer’s patients you have to be very careful what you say when you're looking at them over their bed. Because once in a while, they understand it. So she thinks that he has gotten a feeling of the two of us together. And, as she says, his soul doesn't have Alzheimer’s.”
These have been momentous years for the Reagan legacy -- and Mrs. Reagan is doing her part.
In 1996, she addressed the Republican National Convention in San Diego. "That was the first time I'd ever gone to a convention without Ronnie. And so, they wanted me to say something. And I walked out there not prepared for the reception at all ... I started to cry, which, of course, is not too hard."
There was also a dedication of the USS Ronald Reagan, the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to both President and Mrs. Reagan, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mrs. Reagan.
Last year also marked a major milestone for the Reagans - a milestone void of celebration. March 4, 2002, was the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.
What did Nancy do that day? “Nothing," she says. "And how I’d love to be able to talk to him about it. And there were times when I had to catch myself, because I’d reach out and start to say, ‘Honey, remember when …’"
She's not sure if her husband still knows her. But she says she is comforted by the letters President Reagan wrote to her over the years - letters that bring her husband back to her.
A love letter that he once wrote aboard Air Force One reads: “When you aren’t there I’m no place, just lost in time and space. I more than love you, I’m not whole without you.”
What are her days like now?
“I see friends. Not every day, but I do. I stick pretty close to home,” says Nancy. "It's lonely, because really, when you come right down to it, you're in it alone. And there's nothing that anybody can do for you. So it's lonely.”
In 1975, Nancy said that her life began with her husband, and that she couldn't imagine life without Ronald Reagan. Has she said goodbye yet?
“No,” she says. “Not really. He's there. He's there.” |
