We All Live a Normal Life

Reading a story by Ann Beattie in The New Yorker this week made me think about how as my Dad used to say " put our pants on one leg at a time." In this story we see a fictional account written by Pat Nixon about various incidents in her life with Richard Nixon.

One of the sections centers on a time when The President, now out of office and living in New Jersey has a dog approach him when he is outside. The dog appears lost and Nixon likes dogs. He brings the dog inside and he and Pat have a debate about keeping it, if someone might be looking for it and then make tea. It is the kind of thing we all do, the conversations of short term meaning that we all have with our spouses.

Would we feel differently about our leaders if we knew that they liked the movies we did, the music we did, wore the same bathrobe as we did or enjoyed the same books. Does that make them more human and less of a leader. There was a reason that even those that did not like President Bush the younger as President felt like he was more knowable and likable than Al Gore. Bill Clinton could make everyone feel like they knew him and it worked for him.

Richard Nixon was a good President and a human man with flaws, perhaps greater than other Presidents, perhaps not. In the end however he might well have discussed keeping a stray dog. In the end we saw him breakdown and cry when his wife Pat Nixon died and he soon followed her.

He died like the rest of us will. Alone. He came into the world like the rest of us did. Alone. In between one assumes with charity he did the best he could and even with his mistakes his intent was usually good. He had human frailties and made mistakes. We all do.

We all live and we all die. Thinking about Nixon and a stray dog made me think of my own life and in the end my own mortality. Perhaps that is why I write so much. We all want a legacy. A friend of mine told me about a dream he had as we finished high school. He came back to school the next year to visit. Right before he had left he had written up on the wall Steve was here. When he returned the next year he sought out what he had written. It was there but underneath in bigger letters stood a new phrase. Who Cares.

We all want our lives to mean something. Did Nixon find solace in a dog or a grandchild after the ups and downs of his life. I hope so. We should hope to find solace in our lives when we get old. We all need to do things that will help us have that as we get old.

Rest easy Mr. Nixon. I am sure that stray dogs life was better for your efforts. In the end is that not all any of us can do. To improve somebody, someones life and hope that the ledger is in the positive at the end.