Free I Love You, Ronnie by Nancy Reagan

met with enraged college students. They showed up to meet him disheveled, to say the least, and they were often very rude. Once, they greeted Ronnie outside a Board of Regents meeting by lining up on both sides of the sidewalk and giving him the silent treatment. Ronnie slowly walked the gauntlet in silence and then, when he reached the end, he turned around, smiled at them, put his finger up to his lips, and said, “Shhh!”
    Another time, a student accused him of being out of touch. “You grew up in a different world,” the student said. “Today we have television, jet planes, space travel, nuclear energy, computers . . .”
    “You’re right,” Ronnie answered. “It’s true that we didn’t have those things when we were young.We
invented
them.”
    The student rebellion of the late 1960s and early 1970s was difficult for all parents, and we were no exception.
    Ronnie never got truly angry—not at Patti or at Ron, Maureen, and Michael, or at me. It simply wasn’t in his nature. At the White House, aides said the only way they knew he was really mad was when he took his glasses off and threw them on his desk. That’s about as bad as things ever got.
    At home, Ronnie and I disagreed so rarely that when we did it was a major event. As Ronnie says in the following letter, it kept him up half the night afterward.
    RONALD REAGAN
    Dear Mrs. Reagan
    And you are Mrs. Reagan because Mr. Reagan loves you with all his heart. Every time Mr. Reagan sees the evening star or blows out the birthday candles or gets the big end of the wishbone he thinks the same wish—a prayer really—that so much happiness will go on and somehow be deserved by him.
    It is true sometimes that Mr. Reagan loses his temper and slams a door but that’s because he can’t cry or stamp his foot—(he isn’t really
the type.) But mad or glad Mr. Reagan is head over heels in love with Mrs. Reagan and can’t even imagine a world without her—
    He loves her
    Mr. Reagan  
    P.S. Mr. Reagan had to get up and take a sleeping pill halfway through the night.
    We tried never to go to bed angry. And we never let things smolder. We talked it out, and that was that.
    RONALD REAGAN
    PACIFIC PALISADES
    DearWife,
    A few days ago you told me I was angry with you. I tried to explain I was frustrated with myself. But later on I realized that my frustration might have been a touch of self-pity because I’d been going around feeling that you are frequently angry with me.
    No more.We are so much “one” that you are as vital to me as my own heart—with one exception; you could never be replaced with a transplant.
    Whatever I treasure and enjoy—this home, our ranch, the sight of the sea—all would be without meaning if I didn’t have you. I live in a permanent Christmas because God gave me you. As I write this, you are hurrying by—back and forth doing those things only you can do
and I get a feeling of warm happiness just watching you. That’s why I can’t pass you or let you pass me without reaching to touch you. (Except now or you would see what I’m doing.)
    I’ll write no more because I’m going to catch up with you wherever you are and hold you for a moment.
    Merry Christmas Darling—I love you with all my heart.
    Your Husband
    Like any other couple, we didn’t agree on everything, of course. But we never really argued.We worked on things. And I think that’s why, beyond our love for each other, our marriage has always been so happy.What we felt was right out there, just as it is in the letters.
    I tried to explain this once in a letter to a woman in Washington, D.C., who was about to get married and had written to me in Sacramento to ask if I had any tips for building a good marriage. “I’m very flattered that you wrote me, and I wish I thought I had a surefire formula for a successful marriage,” I wrote back. Then I wrote,
    I’ve been very lucky. However, I don’t ever remember once sitting down and mapping out a blueprint. It just became