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<DIV> Reagan Remembered<BR>Months Before the Ex-President's Death, His
Daughter Shared Memories</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>By Patti Davis, People</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> <BR> <BR> <BR>What was once my father's office
is now his bedroom. On top of the desk where he rested his elbows as sunlight
slanted through the window, where he wrote his last letter to America announcing
that he had Alzheimer's in 1994, bedsheets are often stacked – ready to be used
for a change of the hospital bed where he now stays around the clock. When he is
awake, which is not that often, he can gaze at the trees outside the window. The
other day, my mother and the nurse who was on duty moved the bed to the open
doorway so he could look into the back garden, where the sun was making prisms
on the leaves after a morning of rain. "Did he seem to notice the different
view?" I asked my mother. "I don't know," she said.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>People often ask me how my father is doing. They want to know if he still
recognizes me, if he still recognizes any of us. It makes me realize that my
mother and I have been so protective of his condition since he became ill –
almost a decade now – that it has allowed people to imagine he is still talking,
still walking, still able to stumble into a moment of clarity. But it would be a
disservice to every family who has an Alzheimer's victim in their embrace to say
any of that is true, and I don't believe my father would want us to lie. Today,
we are like many other families who come to the bedside of a loved one and look
into eyes that no longer flicker with recognition. It rearranges your universe.
It strips away everything but the most important truth: that the soul is alive,
even if the mind is faltering.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My father is the only man in the house these days, except for members of
his Secret Service detail who occasionally come in. It's a house of women, now –
the nurses, my mother, the housekeepers. Me, when I am there, which is often,
since I live only 10 minutes away. When my brother Ron visits from Seattle, or
our older brother Michael comes over, the sound of a male voice seems to
register with my father. He lifts his eyebrows. Is it recognition of his sons?
Curiosity about this new male intruder? I don't know. We frequently arrange
dinner around his bed. In fact, it has become the center of the house.
Everything radiates from that space, whether he is awake or asleep. It radiates
from the man whose life is thinning to a stream, yet flows and follows us even
when we drive off the property.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In the room next to my father's, my mother now sleeps in a new bed. The
king-size bed they shared for so many years came to feel vast and empty to her,
so she had it taken away and replaced by a queen-size bed. Less empty space
across the mattress. Yet it's no relief from the loneliness of sleeping alone
after 50 years of rolling over to the person you love. She still tiptoes across
the floor if she gets up in the middle of the night; her heart forgets that the
other side of the bed is empty. I remember the day the larger bed was replaced.
I remember the mark on the carpet where the king-size bed once was. It seemed to
say everything.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Alzheimer's is a long series of I-don't-knows. My father's doctor doesn't
know how he has lived so long with this disease, especially after breaking his
hip in January 2001. I think it's the tenacity of his soul – he just isn't ready
to leave his reunited family. At a certain point in time, it might all come down
to this – life is about learning how to die, how to let go and how to hold on to
what is really important. One thing that was so startling about the TV movie
that has gotten so much publicity is that it was based on years of our lives
when my mother and I were often at war. The script made use of things I had
written at that time, before I was able to put my rebelliousness and political
stridency aside. After reading the script, she said to me, "I'm so sorry about
the way you were portrayed." I think I answered, "Well, we all came off
terribly." But the moment was not lost on me. A single sentence can be a bridge
over currents of old history.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>My father will leave, we all know that. There will be many people poring
over his political career. There will be debates and discussions about his
Presidency. But as a family, we will be elsewhere. We will walk past an empty
room. We will be assaulted by the silence, the emptiness, and we will, I think,
try hard to listen – to echoes, whispers, all those things that don't vanish
when a person dies. That is, if you believe in such things. My father did. And
that might be his most important legacy for us – what lives on in the
heart.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><B>Walt
Davies<BR>Cooper Hollow Farm<BR>Monmouth, OR 97361<BR>503 623-0460 <BR></B><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1086710998@aol.com" height=93 width=72 border=0 DATASIZE="2892" ID="MA1.1086710998" ></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>