Upon hearing that George H.W. Bush died, our first thought turned not to his time in the Oval Office but to his daughter Robin. The second child and the elder daughter of George and Barbara Bush, Pauline Robinson Bush died of leukemia before her fourth birthday in 1953. George Bush would later wonder if, when he met her again in heaven, she would be a child or an adult.
If that was part of the mystery that has now been revealed to him, we can know with certainty that it was a reunion filled with a deep and abiding joy.
Referred to as the quiet man in a recent book of that title by his one-time chief of staff John H. Sununu, Bush was a leader the country turned to again and again in crisis. He led the Republican National Committee during the collapse of Richard Nixons presidency. He took the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency when it was at a low ebb. And he took up the reins as vice president in the Reagan administration at a time when the United States was in retreat abroad and retrenching economically at home.
