Mourning a President...

While awaiting the Belmont on Saturday, I heard the news. At first, I thought there was simply a special on, but then I knew: President Reagan had died. I was immediately saddened. This man was the first person I identified as President, because my first true memory of the man and the title were, ironically, when the nation feared he would die at the hand of an assassin. This was during the first grade. At the end of his Presidency, I knew only what my strongly-Democratic father thought of him. And honestly, my view of him did not change until last year, when Nancy Reagan published a collection of his love letters to her. The narrations and memories were all over the media, and I found that I now saw him as a man deeply in love with his wife, who, at heart, was a good man with good intentions. That is the man I mourn. Not the President who made his share of mistakes, but the loving husband who adored his wife, and for Nancy and their family, I mourn him, too.