My brother’s speech filled up some of the empty space left by our father’s death—and moved me to tears, writes Patti Davis
(snip)
There was something sweetly haunting about the cadence of his voice, the occasional tilt of his head. There was a shadow of our father there, a shadow that rustled beneath the skin of his son and made more than a few people see the resemblance. I suppose I have seen hints of that in the past—a son showing characteristics of our father, Ronald Reagan—but never as much as I saw them last night.
When a loved one dies, you try to fill up the empty space that person has left behind. You fill it up with each other. My mother, Ron and I stretch ourselves across the chasm my father left when he died. We fill it up with long conversations, with frequent visits and, most importantly, with carrying on—trying to do something in this world that will help, that will have worth and resonance. Last night my brother filled up that empty space with a fierce compassion, a pledge to further the effort of stem-cell research, a commitment to help herald in a new dawn of medicine that is nothing short of miraculous.
(snip)
My mother, Ron and I stood at our father’s bedside when he took his last breath. We knew we would have to go on from that day, that moment, that room that was suddenly so silent. We would have to remember all that my father taught us about making a difference in the world, and we would have to trust that if we spoke from our hearts, people would listen.
I believe my father was watching his son last night. I believe he was smiling. I think he cocked his head and said, “Well, look at that.” As children we never lose the desire to make our parents proud of us. We run away from that desire for years, until we decide to stop running. But we never lose it. My brother accomplished that last night—he made his father proud.
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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5538567/site/newsweek/
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