| She had already lost a grandfather, and she and Mother, whom she called Ginger, had a close, tender relationshipOn the wall of her study room, she had a terrific pen-and-ink portrait of Mother by Hot Springs artist Gary Simmons, entitled Chelseas GingerIt was moving to watch my daughter coming to terms with the loss of someone else she loved, trying to express her grief and keep her composure, letting go and holding onChelseas Ginger is hanging in her room in Chappaqua today
Later that morning we put out a release announcing Mothers death, which was all over the news immediatelyBy coincidence, Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich were on the morning news programsUndeterred by the moment, interviewers asked about Whitewater; to one, Dole replied that it cries out for the appointment of an independent counselI would have thought that even the press and my adversaries would take a time-out on the day of my mothers deathTo his credit, a few years later Dole apologized to meBy then, I better understood what had happenedWashingtons narcotic of choice is powerIt dulls the senses and clouds the classic louis vuitton bags judgmentDole was not even close to being its worst abuserI was touched by his apology
That same day Al Gore went to Milwaukee to deliver a foreign-policy speech I had agreed to make, and I flew homeDick and Mothers house was full of their friends, family, and the food Arkansas folks bring to ease common grievingWe all laughed and told stories about herThe next day Hillary and Chelsea arrived, as did some of Mothers other friends from out of state, including Barbra Streisand and Ralph Wilson, the owner of the Buffalo Bills, who had invited Mother to the Super Bowl the previous year when he learned she was a huge Bills fan
No church was big enough to hold all Mothers friends and it was too cold to hold the funeral service at her preferred venue, the racetrack, so we scheduled it for the Convention CenterAbout three thousand people came, including Senator Pryor, Governor Tucker, and all my college roommatesBut most of the attendees were simple working people whom Mother had met and befriended over the yearsAll the women from her birthday club were there, tooThere were twelve members, each with a pink gucci watch birthday in a different monthThey celebrated them together over monthly lunchesAfter Mother died, as she requested, the other women picked a replacement; and they renamed their group the Virginia Clinton Kelley Birthday Club
The Reverend John Miles presided over the service, referring to Mother as an American originalVirginia, he said, was like a rubber ball; the harder life put her down, the higher she bouncedBrother John reminded the crowd of Mothers automatic response to every problem: Thats no hill for a stepper
The service featured the hymns she lovedWe all sang Amazing Grace and Precious Lord, Take My HandHer friend Malvie Lee Giles, who once lost her voice completely, then got it back from God with an extra octave to spare, sang His Eye Is on the Sparrow, and Mothers favorite, A Closer Walk with TheeOur Pentecostal friend Janice Sjostrand sang a powerful hymn Mother had heard at my inaugural church service, Holy GroundWhen Barbra Streisand, who was sitting behind me, heard Janice, she touched my shoulder and shook her head in amazementWhen the service was over, she asked, Who is black balenciaga bag that woman and what is that music? Its magnificent! Barbra was so inspired by Mothers funeral music that she made her own album of hymns and inspirational songs, including one written in Mothers memory, Leading with Your Heart
After the funeral we drove Mother home to HopeAll along the way, people were standing by the road to show their respectShe was buried in the cemetery across the street from where her fathers store had been, in the plot that had long awaited her, beside her parents and my fatherIt was January 8, the birthday of her favorite man outside the family, Elvis Presley
After a reception at the Sizzlin Steakhouse, we drove to the airport to fly back to WashingtonThere was no time to grieve; I had to go back to putting things togetherAs soon as I dropped Hillary and Chelsea off, I left for a long-planned trip to Europe to establish a process for opening NATOs door to the Central European nations in a way that wouldnt cause Yeltsin too many problems in RussiaI was determined to do everything I could to create a Europe that was united, free, democratic, and secure for the first balenciaga yellow time in historyI had to make sure NATO expansion didnt simply lead to a new division of Europe farther to the east
In Brussels, after a speech in the city hall to a group of young Europeans, I received a special giftBelgium was celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the death of my favorite Belgian, Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, and the mayor of Dinant, Saxs hometown, presented me with a beautiful new Selmer tenor sax made in Paris
The next day the NATO leaders approved my Partnership for Peace proposal to increase our security cooperation with Europes new democracies until we could achieve the expansion of NATO itself
On January 11, I was in Prague with Vclav Havel, twenty-four years to the week after my first trip there as a studentHavel, a small, soft-spoken man with dancing eyes and a biting wit, was a hero to the forces of freedom everywhereHe had been in prison for years and used the time to write eloquent and provocative booksWhen he was released, he led Czechoslovakia through a peaceful Velvet Revolution, then oversaw the orderly division of the country into two fake chloe bag stat |
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