MY SISTER MAUREEN WAS one of the most selfless people I’ve ever known.
After Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Maureen organized fund-raisers, gave media interviews, testified before Congress—anything to find a cure for the disease. Her only thought was for Dad and all the other people suffering from the disease.
She was so wrapped up in the cause that she neglected her own health needs. After skipping checkups and ignoring the warning signs, she was diagnosed with advanced melanoma. Even after she knew her illness was terminal, she never thought about herself. She only thought about Dad, about Mom, about her husband and daughter, about me. Maureen was a mother hen, and she was watching over everyone but herself.
In December 2000, Colleen and I went to visit Maureen at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica. She was receiving biochemotherapy treatments at the John Wayne Cancer Institute there. When we arrived, we visited awhile with Maureen, her husband Dennis, and her daughter Rita. Finally, Maureen said, “Everybody out! No, not you, Michael. You stay.”
When it was just the two of us, she said, “I know how busy you are, Michael. You’ve got your radio show, your writing, and your speaking—but I want you to do something for me. I’ve been hoping and praying I would beat this cancer. But if I don’t make it, I want you to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Promise you’ll carry on the work I’m doing. Promise you’ll leave radio, and you’ll devote yourself to preserving our father’s legacy.”
“I promise.”
Eight months after that conversation, on August 8, 2001, my sister stepped into eternity.
Her funeral mass was a beautiful celebration of her life and an expression of her faith. Ron, Patti, and I took part in the service. Though I was only supposed to give a Scripture reading, I departed from the script and talked about Maureen and all she had meant to me over the years. I said a heartfelt “thank you” to her for breaking open her piggy bank and giving her savings to the nurse—all ninety-seven cents of it. Maureen brought me into the Reagan family, and I’ll always be grateful.
I wasn’t sure if it was okay to go off script like that. But Mom hugged me and thanked me for sharing that personal story of Maureen, and I knew I had done the right thing.
After Maureen’s death, I took up the causes that she had championed. I joined the board of the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation (jdfaf.org), which does an outstanding job of funding Alzheimer’s research. My father’s longtime friend Art Linkletter served as chairman of the board for more than twenty years; after he passed away in 2010, I was named honorary chairman of the foundation.
I was elected to the Board of Trustees of Eureka College in 2006—another cause that was dear to Maureen’s heart. She was elected to the board in 1999 but passed away before she could complete her term.
To fulfill my promise of maintaining my father’s legacy, I founded the Reagan Legacy Foundation (reaganlegacyfoundation.org). Among the foundation’s projects are the Ronald Reagan exhibit at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin; funding for the Ronald Reagan French-American Conference Center at the Normandy Museum in Sainte-Mère-Église (the first town liberated by the Americans on D-Day); and a student exchange program, Liberty Education Tours, which introduces future leaders to the accomplishments and ideas of President Reagan.
My favorite project of the foundation is the educational scholarship program for personnel who serve aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. Because of my father’s illness, he never got to see the aircraft carrier named for him. The USS Ronald Reagan is the flagship of Carrier Strike Group Five—and on March 15, 2016, I will visit the ship at its home port in Yokosuka, Japan, to hand out more Reagan Legacy Foundation scholarships to deserving sailors, airmen, and their families.
We also obtained permission from the government of Berlin to place a plaque in the ground at the Brandenburg Gate, commemorating my father’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech in 1987.
I work with the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), the organization that maintains my father’s ranch, his “cathedral in the sky.” I often speak at YAF events. The Young America’s Foundation is doing an excellent job, inspiring the next generation of Reagan conservatives and upholding the values and principles my father fought for.
As I have traveled the world, in country after country, people tell me, “Please tell the American people to get it right. The world cannot afford for America to fail.” As my father so often reminded us, America is that “shining city on a hill.” Oppressed people around the world look to America as a place of refuge and hope. We have to keep the lights burning in this shining city. We mustn’t let its light go dark.
My father launched his political career with a televised speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater on October 27, 1964. That speech was called “A Time for Choosing.” In that speech, my father laid out the essential principles of what we now know as Reagan conservatism: limited government, lower taxes, free market economics, the inalienable rights of the individual, and the preservation of the Constitution. It was more than a speech about conservative principles—it was a speech about American principles. He said:
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down—up to man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order—or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. . . .
The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew, those Founding Fathers, that outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector of the economy.
So we have come to a time for choosing.
Though Barry Goldwater lost in a landslide, that speech had a profound impact on the nation. Soon afterward, GOP leaders and average citizens were urging Ronald Reagan to run for governor of California. And the rest is history.
One of the last official acts of Dad’s career was his speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas. These two speeches—“A Time for Choosing” in 1964 and the convention speech in 1992—are like bookends to his political career. In his final great speech, he returned to the grand themes he first proclaimed in 1964 and embodied throughout the Reagan Eighties. He said:
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future. So this evening, for just a few minutes, I hope you will let me talk about a country that is forever young.
There was a time when empires were defined by land mass, subjugated peoples, and military might. But the United States is unique because we are an empire of ideals. For two hundred years we have been set apart by our faith in the ideals of democracy, of free men and free markets, and of the extraordinary possibilities that lie within seemingly ordinary men and women. We believe that no power of government is as formidable a force for good as the creativity and entrepreneurial drive of the American people. . . .
We have arrived, as we always do, at the moment of truth—the serious business of selecting a president. Now is the time for choosing.
He closed that speech on a note of farewell. “My fellow Americans,” he said, “good-bye, and God bless each and every one of you, and God bless this country we love.” It truly was my father’s farewell to the nation. Exactly two years after delivering that speech, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
In November 1994, he handwrote a letter to the nation, saying, “I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. . . . I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.”
That’s my Dad—as optimistic as ever. But will there always be a bright dawn for America? It depends on you and me. It depends on the choices we make, day by day.
Every day is a time for choosing.
After my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, my sister Maureen would visit Dad at the house and work jigsaw puzzles with him. At first, they would work the big 500-piece puzzles. But as his disease progressed, Maureen would bring a 200-piece puzzle, then a 100-piece puzzle, and finally a 50-piece puzzle.
We would take my son Cameron, who was a teenager, to visit his grandfather. Cameron enjoyed taking books from the shelves of my father’s library and looking at them. He’d sit next to Dad and they would look at the books together. One of Cameron’s favorite books to thumb through with Dad was written in Chinese characters. They would look at the beautiful pictures in the book, then laugh because neither of them could read the writing.
Ashley, who is five years younger than Cameron, would sometimes have lunch with Dad at his thirty-fourth floor office suite at Fox Plaza in Century City. At Christmastime in 1995, Colleen and I took Ashley to the office and we had a wonderful lunch with Dad. After lunch, some of Dad’s staffers announced that they had put together a program of Christmas music in the conference room.
It was about a year and a half after my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and by that time he was having some good moments and some bad moments. For most of our time together, Dad seemed much like his old self. But after lunch, the Alzheimer’s seemed to really kick in. Colleen and I decided we would not stay for the Christmas program, so we hugged Dad good-bye. At that moment, he really couldn’t communicate with us except with a hug.
Then Dad looked at twelve-year-old Ashley and it was as if everything came into focus for him and he was his old self again—he truly seemed as if he had never had Alzheimer’s a day in his life. “Ashley,” he said, “would you like to join me and listen to some Christmas carols?”
The transformation was startling. Dad wrapped his arms around Ashley and gave her a big hug, and she put her arms around Dad and squeezed him tight. As they hugged, Dad looked at me with that Reagan twinkle in his eye. “You know why I’m hugging Ashley?” he said.
“No, Dad—why?”
“Because she’s a she.”
That’s my dad—always a ladies man. We walked into the conference room and enjoyed the Christmas program. But before we left, the curtain of Alzheimer’s had come down again over my father. But it had been wonderful, if only for a moment, seeing how a hug from Ashley brought back the old Ronald Reagan we knew and loved.
He was a wonderful father and grandfather—but he wasn’t always a “huggy” kind of guy. He came from a generation in which men didn’t express emotions. In his foreword to the paperback edition of my book, On the Outside Looking In, Dad wrote, “Being a father forty-five years ago was a much different role than it is today. . . . Fathers didn’t spend the amount of quality time with their children that today’s fathers do, and they weren’t always free to hug their sons or say I love you.”1
Dad didn’t realize how I struggled with the emotional distance between us. He didn’t understand that all four of his children felt unsure of his love for us. Despite how much we admired him and respected him, despite his kindness and gentleness as a father, we struggled to feel close to him. In my own case, after carrying the burden of my childhood secret for so many years, I came to believe that if Dad didn’t hug me, it was because there was something wrong with me.
And for years, I felt bitter and angry because of that.
One day, while I was in prayer, I felt God speaking to me: Mike, when was the last time you hugged your dad? And the answer, of course, was that I had never hugged my dad. He didn’t initiate any hugs—and neither did I.
That was a moment of clarity. I realized that the problem was not all him. At least half of it was me. So I decided that, the next time I saw my father, whether we were alone or in public, I would give him a hug.
In early 1991, my father came to San Diego to appear as a guest on my Radio KSDO talk show. It was one of the proudest days of my career, interviewing my father about his book, An American Life. After the show, Dad and I walked out to the lobby—and it hit me: This is it. This is the day I give my father a hug.
There were Secret Service agents, reporters, and station personnel all around. I didn’t care. I reached out, wrapped my arms around my father, and hugged him. And how did my father react? He tensed up! He wasn’t ready for it, he was embarrassed by it, and he wasn’t sure how to react. But I hugged him tight.
And after an awkward moment or two, he returned my hug.
In that moment, something changed. Our relationship was never the same. From then on, whenever my father and I said hello or good-bye, we hugged each other. And very often, to my surprise, he was the one who initiated the hug!
And here’s the amazing thing: it turned out that Dad wanted a hug as much as anyone—he just didn’t know how to go about it.
Three years after that first hug, Dad told the world he had been stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. Time passed, the disease progressed, and it gradually stole my father’s memories from him. The day came when he no longer remembered my name.
But he still recognized me. He knew who I was. I was the guy who hugged him.
When he would see me, he would open his arms and wait for me to give him a hug. And I would always reach out and pull him close to me, hug him tightly, and say, “I love you, Dad.”
And he’d look me in the eyes, and he knew me.
One time, Colleen and I went to visit him. He and Nancy sat together in the den, and Colleen and I spent most the time conversing with Nancy, while including Dad as much as possible. Finally, it was time to go. Colleen and I said good-bye to Dad and Nancy, and we left.
But there was something I had forgotten to do—something I had never forgotten before. I forgot to give my father a hug.
Colleen and I were in the driveway, walking to our car, when Colleen touched my arm and said, “Michael—you forgot something.”
“What did I forget?”
“Turn around.”
I looked—and there was Dad, standing at the door, arms outstretched, waiting for his hug. I ran back and hugged him and said, “I love you, Dad. I love you.”
I’m glad I finally stopped resenting the distance between my father and me and started bridging the distance. That was a lesson Dad learned from me, and I learned from him: Take the initiative. Put your arms around someone you love. Say “I love you,” before it’s too late.
That’s the greatest lesson of all.