Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of the late former President George H.W. Bush, posted a touching tribute via Instagram that included her grandfather’s thoughts on dying.
The first included dual images, one a picture of Jenna Bush Hager and her twin sister, Barbara, on both sides of their grandfather, and another of them as girls standing beside H.W. and a White House Christmas tree.
“Waking up missing this giant of a man who gave me everything,” wrote Hager. “He taught me and my family about service, family, decency, the power of gentle words and a beautiful heart. I will miss him desperately but so happy he and my Grandmother are back together.” (RELATED: ‘A Lesson In Elegance’ — This Letter Bush Senior Wrote To Clinton After Leaving White House Is Pure Class)
The other included a cartoon of George H.W. Bush landing in heaven in his WWII plane and being reunited with his wife and daughter, Robin, who died of leukemia at the age of three.
“This brought me such comfort this morning,” wrote Hager, who then went into a conversation she had with her “grandpa about the afterlife.” He told her: “Yes, I think about it. I used to be afraid. I used to be scared of dying. I used to worry about death. But now in some ways I look forward to it.”
And I started crying. I managed to choke out, “Well, why? What do you look forward to?” And he said, “Well, when I die, I’m going to be reunited with these people that I’ve lost.” And I asked who he hoped to see. He replied, I hope I see Robin, and I hope I see my mom. I haven’t yet figured it out if it will be Robin as the three year old that she was, this kind of chubby, vivacious child or if she’ll come as a middle-aged woman, an older woman. And then he said, “I hope she’s the three-year-old.” Robin was the daughter this giant of a man lost years before to leukemia. The little girl he held tightly: who spoke the phrase I have heard Gampy repeat for my entire life, forever knitting Robin’s voice into the tightly woven fabric of our family: “I love you more than tongue can tell.”
