In the end, a peaceful passing for the 41st president

The last words spoken by former president George H.W. Bush came barely an hour before he died, in a telephone conversation with his son, former president George W. Bush. The 43rd president had expressed his love for his father. “I love you, too,” the 41st president replied.

The president’s eldest son was on speaker phone, one of a series of final, farewell conversations between the family patriarch and his children, arranged Friday evening as it became clear that the hours were drawing short.

Bush had struggled for days at his home in Houston, not getting out of bed, eating almost nothing, seemingly in decline from the vascular parkinsonism that had restricted his speech and mobility in his final years. But he seemed to find ease in his final moments, said James A. Baker III, Bush’s friend and confidant of 40 years. “It was a very gentle and peaceful and easy passing.”

Baker and his wife, Susan, were there at the end. The former secretary of state had visited Bush three times that day, the first on Friday morning. Baker had risen early, as usual, and after a long walk decided to pay a visit to Bush, who lived not far away. Baker knew the former president was ailing.

He arrived about 7:15 a.m. to find Bush sitting up in bed. One of Bush’s caregivers told the former president that “Secretary Baker is here.” 

“He looked up at me and said, ‘Bake, where are we going?’ ” Baker said in a telephone interview Saturday afternoon. “I said, ‘Jefe, we’re going to heaven.’ And he said, ‘That’s where I want to go.’ ”

George H.W. Bush dies at 94

George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States who helped guide the world out of a four-decade U.S.-Soviet Cold War, died Nov. 30 at age 94. (The Washington Post)

Bush had always been “Mr. President” to Baker when Bush was in the White House and Baker was his secretary of state. But once Bush was out of office, Baker said, he always called him “Jefe,” Spanish for “chief.”

That morning, the former president seemed better than he had in several days. After not eating anything on Thursday, Bush enjoyed a big Friday breakfast of three eggs, a bowl of yogurt and fruit drinks. When Baker left, he and others close to Bush thought he might be bouncing back, as he had many times before. 

“We’re going to have another week or two of semi-normal stuff,” Baker recalled thinking. “He was really quite with it and alert.”

Baker paid his second visit hours later, before heading out to dinner with his wife. It was about 5:45 p.m., and by now clear that “things were going a little bit downhill,” Baker said. “Not critically, but some of the vitals were beginning to show disturbing signs.”

Ronan Tynan, the Irish tenor, was in town and had come to the house to visit. He and Bush had become friends over the years. Jean Becker, the former president’s longtime chief of staff, suggested that Tynan sing something.