Jenna Bush Hager: George HW Bush was ‘antithesis of a wimp’
Jenna Bush Hager, the granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show broadcast Wednesday that she felt “confused” when she saw the elder Bush described as a “wimp” on a magazine cover when she was a young girl.
“He was the antithesis of a wimp,” Bush Hager, sitting beside her twin sister Barbara Bush, said during the interview, which marked the sisters’ first public comments since the death of former President George H.W. Bush.
“He was humble, but why did that have to equate to being a wimp? And it didn’t to us. He was our hero.”
“We just think about how he made us feel, and that was loved, really loved, and how he made our family feel like we were one,” she said.
Barbara Bush recalled spending time with her grandfather during his final summer at the Bush compound in Maine. She said she would read him old love letters that he had written to his late wife, also named Barbara, who died earlier this year.
“He would be in his chair and his eyes would be closed,” Barbara Bush said. “And every time I would try to wrap up, he would say, ‘Go on, go on.’ ”
“And he would have his eyes closed because I think he was picturing what I was reading to him,” she said.
Jenna Bush Hager, towards the end of the interview, said her daughter, Poppy, is named after George H.W. Bush’s childhood nickname.
Poppy Bush Hager was born in 2015.
“Poppy may not remember him but she has his name,” she said. “And I hope she will know that it comes with the responsibility that he felt to give back and to make this world a better place, and to show that love is a strength.”
The Bush family and leaders from around the world are attending Bush’s state funeral at the National Cathedral on Wednesday.
George H.W. Bush died at his Houston home on Friday. He was 94 years old.
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