Robin’s death made me sad, too, in a seven-year-old way. I was sad to lose my sister and future playmate. I was sad because I saw my parents hurting so much. It would be many years before I could understand the difference between my sorrow and the wrenching pain my parents felt from losing their daughter.
The period after Robin’s death was the beginning of a new closeness between Mother and me. Dad was away a lot on business, and I spent almost all my time at her side, showering her with affection and trying to cheer her up with jokes. One day she heard Mike Proctor knock on the door and ask if I could come out and play. “No,” I told him. “I have to stay with Mother.”
For a while after Robin’s death I felt like an only child. Brother Jeb, seven years younger than me, was just a baby. My two youngest brothers, Neil and Marvin, and my sister Doro arrived later. As I got older, Mother continued to play a big role in my life. She was the Cub Scout den mother who drove us to Carlsbad Caverns, where we walked among the stalactites and stalagmites. As a Little League mom, she kept score at every game. She took me to the nearest orthodontist in Big Spring and tried to teach me French in the car. I can still picture us riding through the desert with me repeating, “Ferme la bouche … ouvre la fenêtre.” If only Jacques Chirac could have seen me then.
On a trip with Mother in the desert.
Along the way, I picked up a lot of Mother’s personality. We have the same sense of humor. We like to needle to show affection, and sometimes to make a point. We both have tempers that can flare rapidly. And we can be blunt, a trait that gets us in trouble from time to time. When I ran for governor of Texas, I told people that I had my daddy’s eyes and my mother’s mouth. I said it to get a laugh, but it was true.
Being the son of George and Barbara Bush came with high expectations, but not the kind many people later assumed. My parents never projected their dreams onto me. If they hoped I would be a great pitcher, or political figure, or artist (no chance), they never told me about it. Their view of parenting was to offer love and encourage me to chart my own path.
They did set boundaries for behavior, and there were times when I crossed them. Mother was the enforcer. She could get hot, and because we had such similar personalities, I knew how to light her fuse. I would smart off, and she would let me have it. If I was smutty, as she put it, I would get my mouth washed out with soap. That happened more than once. Most of the time I did not try to provoke her. I was a spirited boy finding my own way, just as she was finding hers as a parent. I’m only half joking when I say I’m responsible for her white hair.
As I got older, I came to see that my parents’ love was unconditional. I know because I tested it. I had two car wrecks when I was fourteen, the legal driving age back then. My parents still loved me. I borrowed Dad’s car, carelessly charged in reverse, and tore the door off. I poured vodka in the fishbowl and killed my little sister Doro’s goldfish. At times I was surly, demanding, and brash. Despite it all, my parents still loved me.
Eventually their patient love affected me. When you know you have unconditional love, there is no point in rebellion and no need to fear failure. I was free to follow my instincts, enjoy my life, and love my parents as much as they loved me.
One day, shortly after I learned to drive and while Dad was away on a business trip, Mother called me into her bedroom. There was urgency in her voice. She told me to drive her to the hospital immediately. I asked what was wrong. She said she would tell me in the car.
As I pulled out of the driveway, she told me to drive steadily and avoid bumps. Then she said she had just had a miscarriage. I was taken aback. This was a subject I never expected to be discussing with Mother. I also never expected to see the remains of the fetus, which she had saved in a jar to bring to the hospital. I remember thinking: There was a human life, a little brother or sister.
Mother checked herself into the hospital and was taken to an exam room. I paced up and down the hallway to steady my nerves. After I passed an older woman several times, she said, “Don’t worry, honey, your wife will be just fine.”
When I was allowed into Mother’s room, the doctor said she would be all right, but she needed to spend the night. I told Mother what the woman had said to me in the hall. She laughed one of her great, strong laughs, and I went home feeling much better.
The next day I went back to the hospital to pick her up. She thanked me for being so careful and responsible. She also asked me not to tell anyone about the miscarriage, which she felt was a private family matter. I respected her wish, until she gave me permission to tell the story in this book. What I did for Mother that day was small, but it was a big deal for me. It helped deepen the special bond between us.
While I was growing up in Texas, the rest of the Bush family was part of a very different world. When I was about six years old, we visited Dad’s parents in Greenwich, Connecticut. I was invited to eat dinner with the grown-ups. I had to wear a coat and tie, something I never did in Midland outside of Sunday school. The table was set elegantly. I had never seen so many spoons, forks, and knives, all neatly lined up. A woman dressed in black with a white apron served me a weird-looking red soup with a white blob in the middle. I took a little taste. It was terrible. Soon everyone was looking at me, waiting for me to finish this delicacy. Mother had warned me to eat everything without complaining. But she forgot to tell the chef she had raised me on peanut butter and jelly, not borscht.
I had heard a lot about my paternal grandparents from Dad. My grandfather Prescott Bush was a towering man—six foot four, with a big laugh and a big personality. He was well known in Greenwich as a successful businessman with unquestioned integrity and a longtime moderator of the town assembly. He was also an outstanding golfer who was president of the U.S. Golf Association and once shot sixty-six in the U.S. Senior Open.
In 1950, Gampy, as we all called him, ran for the Senate. He lost by just over a thousand votes and swore off politics. But two years later, Connecticut Republicans persuaded him to try again. This time he won.
My grandparents, Prescott and Dorothy Walker Bush, campaigning for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut.
When I was ten years old, I went to visit Gampy in Washington. He and my grandmother took me to a gathering at a Georgetown home. As I wandered among the adults, Gampy grabbed my arm. “Georgie,” he said, “I want you to meet someone.” He led me toward a giant man, the only person in the room as tall as he was.
“I’ve got one of your constituents here,” Gampy said to the man. A huge hand swallowed mine. “Pleased to meet you,” said Gampy’s colleague, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson.
My grandfather could be a very stern man. He was from the “children should be seen but not heard” school, which was foreign to a chatty little wiseacre like me. He doled out discipline quickly and forcefully, as I found out when he chased me around the room after I had pulled the tail of his favorite dog. At the time, I thought he was scary. Years later, I learned that this imposing man had a tender heart: Mother told me how he had comforted her by choosing a beautiful grave site for Robin in a Greenwich cemetery. When my grandfather died in 1972, he was buried at her side.