A MAN OF SIMPLE FAITH

I think they broke the mold when they made Ronnie. He was a man of strong principles and integrity. He had absolutely no ego, and he was very comfortable in his own skin; therefore he didn't feel he ever had to prove anything to anyone. He said what he thought and believed. He could move from being a sportscaster... to an actor, to being Governor of the largest state in the country for eight years and then to being president for eight years, and somehow remain the same wonderful man. Perhaps this was helped by his strong, unshakable religious beliefs.

Ronnie always believes that God has a plan for each of us and that we might not know what it is now but eventually we will. He never took off or landed in a plane without out the window and saying a silent prayer. I don't think many people knew this. He was the eternal optimist - the glass was always half full, not half empty. I think that his faith and his comfort with himself accounts for his optimism. SInce he thought that everything happens for a reason, he never saw things darkly. After he was shot and we almost lost him, he lay on his hospital bed staring at the ceiling and praying. He told me that he realised he couldn't pray just for himself, that it wouldn't be right, and that he also had to pray for John Hinckley [the man who shot him.] Hinckley's parents later sent him a note and he sent a nice one back to them. Later Cardinal Cooke visited Ronnie in the White House and said "God was certainly sitting on your shoulder that day." Ronnie replied, "Yes, I know, and I made up my mind that all the days I have left belong to him."

Source: Taken from an article in Time Magazine called The Eternal Optimist, by Nancy Reagan [Time, June 14 2004]