The Movement You Need…

There was a post at RedState in which a new member questioned why so many discussions refer to Ronald Reagan. She wanted to know, since she was too young during his time, what it is that conservatives keep gravitating toward twenty years after he left office.

I replied:

What Reagan Means to Me

I have a personal story about President Reagan that I believe might help you understand his power to affect people as individuals.

In September 1982, I was in my last semester of college looking forward to getting out and earning my place in this world. Things were really looking up and I remember thinking that it was the best time of my life. And up until my daughter’s birth five years ago, it was.

My happy and carefree state changed on a dime with a phone call from my older sister, who lived in another state. My mother had caught herself on fire while cooking dinner and was in the local hospital awaiting transfer to a burn unit. My sister had a family and a career to manage. My father had passed away when I was in elementary school. It was up to me to deal with the situation.

I could go on here and express to you the horrors that I witnessed over the next several months, the weekly 300 mile commutes, and the decisions that no 23 year old son should have to make. But that would be beside the point.

Let it suffice to say that my mother’s injuries were so severe, the pain so excruciating, that she lapsed into a state her doctors called “intensive care unit psychosis.” My visits to her bedside from Thursday evening to Sunday morning each week were incredibly frustrating. It was as if she wasn’t there. All she did, 24 hours a day, was sit in her bed with her eyes wide open speaking mostly gibberish.

The nurses said that she never slept…just continually talked nonsense. But every so often a stream of coherent subconscious thought, mostly expressing fear, would come through. And after a while I started to get the gist of what was going on inside her mind. She was worried about losing her home. And for some strange reason it was tied to her fear about, of all things, Social Security legislation that was being discussed by Congress at the time of her accident.

I did not understand what was happening in Congress; I hadn’t kept up with it. Heck, I was 23 years old! Why on earth would I be concerned about Social Security that seemed a million years away?

During one drive back to the university, I decided that I would find out what was going on in Congress. I would get the information, and explain it to my mother in a reassuring way in hopes that my words would somehow get through and ease her distress. And I couldn’t think of a better way to get some action than to start at the top. So, I would write a letter to the President of the United States. Maybe he could help.

My mother adored Ronald Reagan. I could not understand why at the time; I was influenced daily by academicians who almost universally loathed him. To write an effective letter in this instance, I decided, would require trying to write it the way I thought my mom would. I remember sitting down and pouring my heart into a letter, explaining the situation framed in terms that made it clear how my mother felt about her favorite President.

I sent it. I remember feeling better for having written it, but I also remember being skeptical about getting anything more than a form letter in response. Weeks went by, and I almost forgot about it in my struggle to juggle my mom’s crisis and still graduate on time.

My daily calls to the hospital to check on mom’s condition were becoming pretty repetitive. She was still sitting up, babbling and fearing. That’s pretty much what the nurses said every time I called.

Then, one day… I guess it had been about a month since I sent the letter to President Reagan… I called the hospital expecting the nurse to tell me the status quo had not changed. But it had.

“Would you like to speak with her?” the nurse asked.

“What are you talking about?” I replied.

“She received a card in the mail today, and get well card from President Reagan,” she continued. “We opened it and put it in her good hand. She immediately stopped talking, and sat and stared at it for a couple of hours. And then, she just came back and started talking to us all. We’re all kind of stunned around here.

“Let me put her on the phone,” she concluded.

“Hello,” mom said.

“Hi mom, how are you?”

“I got a card from Secretary Reagan today!” she exclaimed.

“I think you mean ‘President Reagan,’ mom. Don’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right,” she continued. “I wonder how he knew I was here…”

The next day, I received a copy of a letter to my mother from the Social Security Commissioner. It outlined specifically, point by point, why my mother did not need to be concerned about Security Cuts putting her home at risk.

Now, I know that in all probability President Reagan did not physically sign that card. It’s very doubtful that he knew anything of my letter, or of my mother’s situation. But I believe that the way in which my letter was handled speaks volumes about the manner in which Ronald Reagan governed.

At the end of the day, you can always see the mark of a true leader… a great leader… reflected in the the people he selects to work around him.

It’s been almost exactly 25 years since my mom got a get well card from President Ronald Reagan. I’ve worked with and around literally hundreds of elected officials and their staffs since then. I’ve seen the bad, the good and the great. But I’ve never again seen an instance in which a representative of the people was able to touch an individual so deeply through emissaries.

My mom loved Ronald Reagan. And although they were strangers, I know that he loved her.

That’s why Ronald Reagan means so much to me.

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