If we listen closely enough, we can hear that heartbeat even now, for it’s the heartbeat of a lion—a lion who not only led us, but who loved us.
—Jon Meacham
That might be an odd title for a chapter that focuses on the final days of George Herbert Walker Bush.
Except that is exactly how 41 felt about dying: Maybe life as he knew it was coming to an end, but only because it was time to move on to the next big adventure.
That is what you call “faith.”
His good friend Susan Baker, wife of Secretary James Baker, said about President Bush’s faith in 41ON41:
Prayer was an indispensable part of his life, and I think that’s one of the reasons he had such wisdom… that he had the inspiration that he did. He often said that he could not possibly do the job of being President without prayer and without spending time on his knees and getting truth through prayer. I think the whole world has benefited from his faith.
And because of his deep faith, our forty-first President was not afraid of dying.
He was never in a hurry to get there—he had hoped to make it to age one hundred but fell short by six years. His determination on that goal maybe weakened a bit when his wife of seventy-three years died in April 2018. I told him a few days before she died that I hoped he would “stick around for a while.” He told me he absolutely would—his children would need him.
In general, he was fascinated by the subject. He liked to talk about his funeral. Getting out the funeral files and making adjustments was one of his favorite lunchtime activities.
Once he challenged me to help him count the number of times he almost died. We got up to nine.
We talked about heaven and hell—he was curious about who I thought was in hell. (My answer: Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler for sure.) We talked about what would happen when we got to heaven—if I get there, the ever-modest 41 would always say. He was especially excited to see their daughter Robin, who had died from leukemia at age three in 1953. He wondered if the dogs would be there.
His friend Daisy White remembers sitting next to President Bush when out of the blue he asked her: Are you afraid to die? The question caught her off guard, but she answered truthfully. “No, President Bush, I am not afraid, but I am just not quite ready.”
Squeezing her hand, the forty-first President said, I am not either.
I learned a lot watching George Herbert Walker Bush die.
How to die with dignity. How to die with courage. How to die while making everyone around you feel it was okay.
Some of the people who had a front-row seat to his final years agreed to share their stories. President Bush would approve that we are going to start with some mostly humorous observations from one of his doctors.
Clinton Doerr:
As all doctors know, you learn a lot about someone watching them die. Just to be President Bush’s doctor was an honor. To be with him until the end was so much more. Here are my random observations I’d like to share with you.
• President Bush rarely complained about his medical conditions or drew attention to himself.
Nearly every one of my house calls to the Bush residence in Houston were initiated by either Mrs. Bush or his medical or personal aide notifying me something was wrong.
Never once did President Bush complain about his symptoms unless in response to a specific query. Nor would he himself request a visit. True to form, there was rarely any reference to the “I.” Not to imply that he was stoic or minimalizing his symptoms, but he just simply would state the facts and not dwell on them. In fact, he’d often throw out the occasional, “It’s not the cough that carries you off; it’s the coffin that they carry you off in.”
• Politics pervades everything.
Early one morning during President Bush’s January 2017 hospitalization, I was updating him on his recovery from another flare-up of his chronic bronchitis. During our conversation, he switched course and asked me about his bowels. I replied that although my focus was primarily on his lungs, I was informed by the nurses that his bowels were functioning normally overnight, and then I smiled and jokingly said, “Nobody’s going to claim that you’re FOS,1 Mr. President.”
Without missing a beat, he replied, Oh, they will anyway, Doc. To which I fired back, “Well, that’s politics, sir.” He chuckled in acknowledgment.
• Grey Goose2 among friends is medicinal.
Another evening while President Bush was undergoing another hospitalization for a flare-up of his chronic bronchitis, I was finishing rounds and wanted to check in with him before leaving for home.
His room was dark except for a solitary lamp dimly silhouetting two figures. One was President Bush reclined in an easy chair. The other, a distinguished-looking gentleman who was sitting on a couch nearby. I apologized for interrupting and President Bush immediately responded: Hey Doc, meet my friend Jim.
As I greeted Secretary James Baker and shook his hand, I immediately took note of the Grey Goose bottle on the coffee table but did not make mention. Nor did I divulge details to Mrs. Bush the following day when she was at her husband’s bedside. Patient-doctor confidentiality was preserved, AND he was clinically better. I was not entirely certain if the improvement was due to the Grey Goose, the social company, or the official medical care that was being rendered—but who am I to argue? Furthermore, once an Army officer, always an Army officer, so I was not about to question my commander in chief!
• The spoken word is therapeutic.
There were many times during President Bush’s hospitalizations that I found his son Neil reading to him, his eyes closed but attentive to the book content (history seemed to be a favorite theme). I was always impressed that even when ill, usually with a distracting cough or shortness of breath, he would still prefer to listen to the sound of someone’s voice, constantly learning and taking in new information. I realize in the past few years, compared to the interval that I was involved in his care from 2012 through 2018, that the world has become so much more saturated with cell-phone-derived information, be it via texting or social media platforms, but it seems that nothing can replace the connectivity and therapeutic benefit of verbalization. Listening and hearing. Both being a skill and an art.
• Thinking of others, outside of oneself.
This story is actually about Barbara Bush but could be about her husband as well.
The Secret Service contacted me one weekend to tell me that President Bush had an abrupt onset of shortness of breath and low oxygen and they were en route by ambulance to Houston Methodist Hospital. My wife was on duty at the county hospital, so I grabbed our then six-year-old son Jakob and took him with me. Having no choice at the spur of the moment, I dropped Jakob off in the secure Physician’s Library, which was right next to the ER, and went to evaluate President Bush.
Fortunately, he had been stabilized by the ER staff. I spoke with Mrs. Bush, coordinating care with the ER personnel and Dr. Amy Mynderse,3 who had also arrived. Dr. Mynderse pointed out to Mrs. Bush that it was my weekend off and my wife was out of pocket, so I had my son in tow. Mrs. Bush immediately insisted on meeting Jakob. I was shocked. Her husband had just experienced a serious flare of his chronic breathing issues and we were still sorting through the triggering event, yet she wanted to take the time to greet my son.
Accordingly, I escorted Jakob from the library and prepared him that he was about to meet these important people. I told him that President Bush would be on a stretcher with some oxygen tubing and monitors and that it would be okay but a bit “busy.” He took it all in stride. We entered the room, and he was immediately greeted by Mrs. Bush. He was wearing a T-shirt imprinted with German shepherds (we had a German shepherd at the time), and she took notice, prompting a discussion of dogs and pets. He mentioned that he and his sister also had a guinea pig, and Mrs. Bush commented that she wasn’t too fond of rodents.
I was blessed to be at this great man’s side when he died on November 30, 2018.
Dr. Doerr mentioned seeing Neil Bush reading to his dad. Neil lived right across the street from his parents and saw them almost every day during those final years.
Neil Bush:
My father has always been my hero. The guy that treated everyone with respect, that enjoyed life “its own self,” a guy who lifted others in so many ways.
While Mom was the disciplinarian, Dad didn’t need to use words. His leadership in government, business, and family was largely through the example he set. And that was true to the very end of his life.
I’ve observed with both my mother and father that as we age, the filters drop and one’s true character shines through. In Mom’s case, she became a bit more direct in expressing opinions, her sometimes biting humor popping out from time to time, and her deep love and mama bear commitment to family intensified.
As for Dad, no matter how challenging the health issue of the moment might have been, his natural tendency to lean into daily interactions with love became more evident. In his healthier stages of aging, he would write handwritten notes to console friends or celebrate successes. These notes are treasured by the recipients. As a wheelchair-bound former President, he was always thoughtful to linger in restaurants or public events with people who were dying to have a photo. He knew that simple gestures would fill hearts with happiness.
As Dad aged and was nearing the end, he became less verbal. As I was bending down to kiss him and to say, “I love you,” he would inevitably utter, love you more. When asked how he was feeling or how he was doing, he’d give a thumbs-up. When sharing good news, he’d smile; when sharing news of concern to the family, he would give an empathetic frown. It was a blessing to be around a man so loving.
It was a blessing to live across the street from my parents during the latter years of their lives. Maria and I were able to spend a lot of time reading to them, doing puzzles with Mom, sharing news of the day, gossiping about family and friends, and watching Law & Order.
On November 30, 2018, the day of Dad’s passing, we witnessed the soul of a beautiful human transition. In that last day, as he did all his life, my father set a great example for leaving this earthly life with dignity, embracing the core values that were truly important: faith, family, and friends.
Houston family members gathered that day and most of the extended family was reached by phone to have a last word. The strength he received from his loving family was palpable.
Dad’s closest friend, Jim Baker, and his wife, Susan, were present throughout the day. They had visited with Dad often over the days and months leading to his passing. To see the Bakers at Dad’s bedside on that final day drove home the importance of friendships in living a fuller life.
Also there was Jean Becker and Evan Sisley, loyal staff members who fell deeply into the friend category and whose presence in Dad’s life brought him comfort and joy.
Dad’s faith certainly was evident that day, a faith reinforced by the Reverend Russ Levenson, who visited Mom and Dad frequently, prayed with and for them, and was such a reassuring messenger of their faith. Russ’s prayers and peaceful presence during the last moments were perfect for a guy whose quiet faith was deeply inculcated into his being.
What lessons did we learn from the example that my father set? From his life we learned to show gratitude, sing the praises of others, count your blessings, put yourself in the other guy’s shoes, spread goodwill and joy through authentic interactions, be kind and gracious, live a life of dignity, honor, and patriotism, and leave the world a better place.
And on the last day we could see the importance of cultivating a loving family and close friends while living your faith. George H. W. Bush’s life was a blessing to me and to many, many others who were influenced by the example he set.
Earlier that day, Dad had a visit from a great friend, the amazing Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, who sat by his bedside holding Dad’s hand while singing several songs, including “Silent Night.”
The words were perfect: “All is calm, all is bright… sleep in heavenly peace.”
The Reverend Dr. Russell Levenson, the Bushes’ pastor:
Without question, in my now over three decades of ordained ministry, among the greatest honors and privileges was to serve and pastor to George H. W. Bush—and out of that service came a friendship I would have never imagined.
Over the nearly twelve years that I came to know him, from my observation, our forty-first President did all he could to help anyone who needed him—for he, like his beloved Barbara, was a loving man.
He loved his friends and his family, and I think that was the fruit of his sincere faith. In the Episcopal room of the greater house of the Christian faith, we often sing Peter Raymond Scholtes’ hymn that mirrors Jesus’ words from John 13:35—others will know who we are… “by our love.”
I often use the word “generous” when I reflect on both President and Mrs. Bush’s love of others because there seemed to be no circle too large for them to draw in order to take others into the love they knew and the love they wanted to share. They had friends from every walk of life and every nation, language, race, gender, sexual orientation, and political persuasion.
I witnessed this visibly in the faces of the more than twelve thousand people who waited hours in line to pay their respects at the visitation before his final funeral service, at his home church, St. Martin’s in Houston. He was—he is—deeply loved, but it is because so many witnessed his love lived so fully.
The imperative to love others is the basis for every major faith tradition on planet Earth, and I think out of his devotion to his own faith, the President practiced that imperative.
In the last hours of his life, I sat nearby and watched the steady stream of friends and family come to bid their loved one farewell as he prepared to leave this life for the next. The last words of this remarkable man were, unremarkably, “I love you,” because love dwelt fully in his spiritual DNA.
And because he did live in this way, what better way to slip out of this room we call planet Earth and take that next step into the place we call the kingdom of God?
In my book Witness to Dignity: The Life and Faith of George H. W. and Barbara Bush,4 I offered an invitation—and it is the same invitation that I offer to you, the reader of this book, as well. As you reflect on this remarkable collection of memories about this man who rightly deserves the accolades and admiration spilled so liberally in these pages, may they inspire you to deal with the ache about the way things are in our world and our desire to turn that tide, that we cannot just long for better days, but see them return.
George H. W. Bush raised the bar of human service, and in doing so he changed our nation, changed our world, and changed all of our lives for the better.
He was a living point of light, and he showed us what it meant to lead, to live, and to love with a servant’s heart.
By God’s grace, may we find our way there again… and again… and again.
Evan Sisley, personal aide to President Bush (2015–2018):
I had the honor of being President Bush’s last personal aide. The job, much like the men who held it, changed considerably over time. While early aides had busy schedules with frequent trips abroad, my time with President Bush slowly transitioned toward a gentler pace with frequent stays in the hospital. Several of my immediate predecessors grew up in southern Maine and had started working for the President from a young age, when they started as “summer lads,” doing yard work and running errands at Walker’s Point.
I came from a different background. I was part of a small group of reserve Navy corpsmen who were hired to work as medics for President and Mrs. Bush. Many of us had been deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, and we volunteered to care for our former commander in chief with the same dignity and respect that we would the flag that we fought under.
Though he lived a remarkable life, the most remarkable part of President Bush’s aging process—and eventual death—was that it was no different than most Americans’. The man who oversaw our country’s peaceful transition to become the world’s sole superpower was unable to command his own body from failing. Legs accustomed to running the trails of Camp David or chasing tennis balls on the court at Walker’s Point stiffened from Parkinson’s disease. A heart and lungs that fueled his aerobic metabolism through the endless slog of the campaign trail struggled to survive flu season. Where some might have resented the loss of autonomy, he set the example for aging with grace and dignity.
He was always kind and considerate of those who cared for him. The hardest part of having President Bush as my patient was treating the pain of a man who wouldn’t complain.
By now you all know that President Bush was a prolific letter writer. I cannot imagine an aide who left the job without learning the importance of a handwritten note. As the last aide, my only regret is not having the ability to write him a thank-you note. Undoubtedly, working for him changed the course of my life. I wouldn’t be where I am now if it wasn’t for the opportunities that his employment afforded me.
When Jean asked me to write something for this book, I decided maybe it was time to finally write that letter.
Dear President Bush,
In a couple of days, I will load up the Penske5 and move back to Maine. It feels both familiar and new, moving there for the first time without you and Mrs. Bush. Your love of Maine was infectious, and I am thankful for the ability to return. You used to say that Walker’s Point was your “anchor towards windward” during trying times. I am hoping I can channel that same comfort in Portland as I push through graduate school.
I never had the chance to properly thank you for all that you have done for me. Your dedication to public service inspired me to aim higher and dream bigger than I would have ever imagined. Your words of encouragement to pursue medicine have motivated me when I have questioned my capabilities as a student or lost sight of my goals. And your loving devotion to Mrs. Bush set the example for me to follow in my own marriage.
Most importantly, you taught me the things that I could never learn in a classroom: How to recognize discomfort in a patient’s face, or how to broach the most difficult topics like the end of life or the death of a spouse. These were lessons that will affect the way I treat patients for the rest of my life. I also am sorry for the mistakes that I made—the times that you maybe were frustrated with my inability to understand the care that you needed.
I am forever grateful for the patience, kindness, and compassion you showed me while teaching me how to become a better healthcare provider. My future patients thank you, too.
Best,
Evan
When I asked President Bush’s biographer, Jon Meacham, if he would contribute something to this book, his reaction was honest: “Of course. But I think I’ve said everything there is to say about him.” After pondering for a few weeks, he came back and suggested I share with you the eulogy he gave at President Bush’s state funeral. I knew it was right. His eulogy had been an exclamation point on the life of 41. We’ll share the eulogy after Jon’s introduction:
He was, to put it mildly, skeptical. It was September 1998, and George H. W. Bush had agreed to an interview with the presidential historian Michael Beschloss to launch A World Transformed, the foreign policy book the forty-first President had written with Brent Scowcroft. At the time, Michael was a contributor to Newsweek, the weekly newsmagazine where I was the national-affairs editor. Michael kindly let me tag along for the interview, which the former President scheduled for 7:00 a.m. in order to be done with it early. This strategy was not a reflection on Michael, whom Bush admired, but on the magazine, which had long had a tense relationship with Bush, one that stretched back to his vice presidential days under Ronald Reagan.6
Michael and I ended up spending much of the day at Walker’s Point—and there began a long journey with George Herbert Walker Bush. I became his biographer, publishing Destiny and Power in 2015. Below is the eulogy I delivered at Washington National Cathedral in December 2018. It was the honor of a lifetime.
In the summer of 2018, on the same first floor of the house where we had first met with Michael and General Scowcroft twenty years before, I read these remarks to an ailing President Bush.
When the reading was done, the president paused, then said:
Beautiful. But that’s an awful lot about me.
In character to the very end—that was George Herbert Walker Bush.
My eulogy as prepared for delivery:
The story was almost over even before it had fully begun. Shortly after dawn on Saturday, September 2, 1944, Lt. j.g. George Herbert Walker Bush, joined by two crewmates, took off from the USS San Jacinto to attack a radio tower on Chichijima. As they approached the target, the air was heavy with flak. The plane was hit. Smoke filled the cockpit. Flames raced along the wings. My God, Lt. Bush thought, this thing’s gonna go down.
Yet he kept the plane in its 35-degree dive, dropped his bombs, and then roared off, out to sea, telling his crewmates to “Hit the silk!” Following protocol, Lt. Bush turned the plane so they could bail out. Only then did Bush parachute from the cockpit. The wind propelled him backward, and he gashed his head on the tail as he flew through the sky.
Lt. Bush plunged deep into the ocean, bobbed to the surface, and flopped onto a tiny raft. His head bleeding, his eyes burning, his mouth and throat raw from salt water, the future 41st President was alone. Sensing that his men had not made it, he was overcome. He felt the weight of responsibility as a nearly physical burden, and he wept. Then, at four minutes shy of noon, a submarine emerged to rescue the downed pilot. George Herbert Walker Bush was safe.
The story—his story, and ours—would go on, by God’s grace. Through the decades President Bush would ask himself: Why me? Why was I spared? In a sense, the rest of his life was a perennial effort to prove himself worthy of his salvation on that distant morning. To him, his life was no longer wholly his own. There were always more missions to undertake, more lives to touch, more love to give.
And what a headlong race he made of it all. He never slowed down. On the primary campaign trail he once shook the hand of a department-store mannequin in New Hampshire, seeking votes. When he realized his mistake, he said: Never know. Always gotta ask. You can hear the voice, can’t you? As Dana Carvey said, the key to a Bush 41 impression was “Mr. Rogers trying to be John Wayne.”
George Herbert Walker Bush was America’s last great soldier-statesman, a 20th-century Founding Father. He governed with virtues that most closely resemble those of Washington and of Adams, of TR and of FDR, of Truman and of Eisenhower—of men who believed in causes larger than themselves.
Six-foot-two, handsome, dominant in person, President Bush spoke with his big, strong hands, making fists to underscore his points. A master of what Franklin Roosevelt called “the science of human relationships,” George H. W. Bush believed that to whom much is given, much is expected.
And because life gave him much, he gave back. He stood in the breach in the Cold War against totalitarianism. He stood in the breach in Washington against unthinking partisanship. He stood in the breach against tyranny and discrimination, and on his watch a wall fell in Berlin, a dictator’s aggression did not stand, and doors across America opened to those with disabilities. And he stood in the breach against heartbreak and hurt, always, always offering an outstretched hand, a warm word, a sympathetic tear. If your heart were troubled, he would rush to mend it; if your life were soaring, he would make haste to celebrate your success. Strong and gracious, comforting and charming, loving and loyal, he was our shield in danger’s hour.
Of course, there was ambition, too: loads of that. To serve he had to succeed; to preside he had to prevail. Politics, he once admitted, isn’t a pure undertaking—not if you want to win, it’s not. An imperfect man, he left us a more perfect union.
And it must be said that for a keenly intelligent statesman of stirring private eloquence, public speaking wasn’t exactly his strongest suit. Fluency in English, President Bush once remarked, is something that I’m often not accused of. Looking ahead to the 1988 election, he observed that it’s no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another. Late in his presidency, he said: We’re enjoying sluggish times, and we’re not enjoying them very much.
His tongue may have run amok at times, but his heart was steadfast. His life code, as he said, was: Tell the truth. Don’t blame people. Be strong. Do your Best. Try hard. Forgive. Stay the course.
It was—and is—the most American of creeds. Abraham Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature” and George H. W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” are companion verses in America’s national hymn, for Lincoln and Bush both called on us to choose the right over the convenient, to hope rather than to fear, to heed not our worst impulses but our best instincts.
In this work he had the most wonderful of allies in Barbara Pierce Bush, his wife of 73 years. He was the only boy she ever kissed. Her children, she liked to say, always wanted to throw up when they heard that. In a letter to Barbara during the war, young George H. W. Bush had written: I love you, precious, with all my heart and to know that you love me means my life. How lucky our children will be to have a mother like you. And, as they will tell you, they surely were.
As Vice President, Bush once visited a children’s leukemia ward in Krakow. Thirty-five years before, he and Barbara had lost a daughter, Robin, to the disease. In Krakow, a small boy wanted to greet the American Vice President. Learning that the child was sick with the cancer that had taken Robin, Bush began to cry.
To his diary, the vice president later recalled: My eyes flooded with tears, and behind me was a bank of television cameras. I thought, ‘I can’t turn around. I can’t dissolve because of personal tragedy in the face of the nurses that give of themselves every day.’ So I stood there looking at this little guy, tears running down my cheek, hoping he wouldn’t see, but, if he did, hoping he’d feel that I loved him.
That was the real George H. W. Bush—a loving man with a big, vibrant, all-enveloping heart.
And so, as we commend his soul to God, we ask, as he so often did: Why him? Why was he spared? The workings of Providence are mysterious, but this much is clear: the George Herbert Walker Bush who survived that fiery fall into the waters of the Pacific made our lives, and the lives of nations, freer, better, warmer, nobler.
That was his mission. That was his heartbeat. And if we listen closely enough, we can hear that heartbeat even now, for it’s the heartbeat of a lion—a lion who not only led us, but who loved us.
That’s why him. That’s why he was spared.
1 For the innocent among you, FOS means full of shit.
2 President Bush’s favorite brand of vodka.
3 Another of President Bush’s physicians.
4 Published by Hachette in 2022.
5 One of the personal aides’ many responsibilities was helping the Bushes and the staff move between Texas and Maine every summer. They always rented a Penske.
6 Think Wimp cover.