Bush George - My father, my president: a personal account of the life of George H.W. Bush

I am so delighted and honored that Doro asked me to write the foreword for My Father, My President. This is a very important book. It is her story about her fatherits our story, a story of laughter and tears, births and deaths, friends and family. It is a love story, written by the daughter of one of the kindest and most decent men in the world, who also happened to become the forty-first president of the United Statesmy husband, George H. W. Bush.

Doro Bush Koch is the best-kept secret in America. Not very many people know that George and I have a daughter. We hear a lot about the men in our family, but not enough about the women. While Georges father, Prescott Bush, certainly was his role model in many ways, some of the greatest influences in Georges life have been the women in our familyhis mother, his wife, his daughter, his daughters-in-law, and his granddaughters. Not to mention all the talented women who have worked with him over the years. Theres a reason why George Bush asked Doro to write this book. I am thrilled that people will now know George Bush through the eyes of a wonderful woman.

Although Ive been told I am the first woman since Abigail Adams to be both a wife and a mother to a president, Doro is the only woman ever in our nations history to live to see both her father and her brother become president. (Abigail Adamss daughters, named Abigail and Susanna, did not live long enough to see their brother become president.) There is only one woman in American history who could have written My Father, My President, and that woman is Doro.

Shes written her own narrative about her fathers life, which spans all the major events of the second half of the twentieth century and beyondfrom World War II and the Cold War to Desert Storm and Hurricane Katrina. Youll see George Bush the elder statesman and diplomat, but youll also meet George Bush the businessman, the adventurer, the sportsman, and the funniest man I know. Most important, youll see him as father and grandfather, working hard to raise our family despite the glare of the media and the rush of events.

Our life with Doro began in the 1950s. George and I were living in Texas and had four beautiful, wild sons; we would have taken a fifth with joy, but in our hearts we were longing for another daughter. Our second child, Robin, had died of leukemia in 1953. Robin was named after my mother, Pauline Robinson Pierce, who had died in a terrible car accident that nearly killed my father as well, only weeks before Robin was born. It was a very sad time in our lives. Even in our pain, we knew that we wanted another girl in our family. George especially did.

In August 1959 my aunt Charlotte Pierce came to Houston to help with the boys, and I went into Memorial Hospital and had a beautiful healthy little girl. We named her Dorothy Walker Bush after Georges wonderful mother. The name Dorothy means gift from God, and Doro wasand isjust that.

My aunt Charlotte came into my hospital room and told me that when the nurse held up Doro at the window of the nursery, George put his head against the glass and tears flowed down his face. I know sons are supposed to be for their dads and girls for their moms. That may well be true, but my heart fills with love when I think of the joy all six of our children brought us each in their own way. Every dad should have a daughter as loving, thoughtful, and sensitive as oursand, I should add, as funny.

Doro was at college and wanted to help her dad when he first ran for president in 1979, so it was her idea to leave school and work in the campaign office. George told her that she honestly could not go to the office and sit around as the candidates daughter. To our great surprise, Doro left Boston College (which she returned to after the election was over) and enrolled in a nine-month secretarial course that went right through the hot summer. She said that she would work her heart out for her dad. That meant a lot to us.

I remember her wearing stockings, a skirt, and a neat blouse all that hot summer while I spent much of the summer in and out of lovely cool Maine. I know she worked hard, like she said she would. To this day, shed do anything in the world for her dadincluding writing this book.

There is a very special relationship between Doro and her dad, and I hope between Doro and her mom. I love and adore our boys, but they dont always understand like Doro does. Doro has a way of looking at the world like no one else in our familysweet, empathetic, and seeing the humor in it all. Her brothers dont just want to have her around, they need to have her in their lives.

Doro started this project by borrowing our Christmas card list and writing to everyone on it, asking for stories about George. It snowballed from there, because the response was overwhelming: hundreds of people responded by snail mail, e-mail, BlackBerry messages, phone calls, you name it. Many stories were laugh-out-loud funny, some were so poignant youd get a lump in your throat reading them. A few had perfect recall of every detail, and others were foggy with time. Over and over, people told Doro stories shed never heard before, often of quiet good deeds George had done over the years that no one knew about. Even in the midst of crises, he has always made time for the personal touchessome little, some bigthat can make all the difference in someone elses life. These stories speak to Georges love of his friends and family.