Moving image of George H. W. Bush keeping vigil for beloved late wife

They were married for 73 years so saying goodbye for the final time was never going to be easy, and sure enough, former US president George H. W. Bush is staying by late wife Barbara’s side to the very end.

The Bush family’s spokesman has shared some moving images of 93-year-old Bush keeping vigil next to Barbara’s coffin as mourners pay their respects to the former first lady at St Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. She will be buried on Saturday in the grounds of the Bush library at Texas A&M University, alongside the couple’s three-year-old daughter Robin, who died in 1953 of leukaemia. 

Bush was accompanied by his daughter Dorothy Bush Koch as he kept watch of the flower-covered coffin, and had a smile and a joke for some of the littlest mourners who came to honour his late wife. Mrs Bush died on Tuesday night in the US at the age of 92, having just days earlier declined further treatment for her medical conditions.

“It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself – thanks to her abiding faith – but for others,” the family said in a statement at the time. “She is surrounded by a family she adores.”

Bush himself was similarly stoic at the loss of his wife, who had always been his staunchest supporter, after what was the longest marriage in US presidential history. He released a statement after her death telling supporters not to be concerned for him, and even jokingly calling Barbara ‘The Enforcer’.

“I always knew Barbara was the most beloved woman in the world, and in fact I used to tease her that I had a complex about that fact,” the statement read. “But the truth is the outpouring of love and friendship being directed at The Enforcer is lifting us all up. We have faith she is in heaven, and we know life will go on – as she would have it. So cross the Bushes off your worry list.”

The former president was at Barbara’s side when she died at home in Houston, having held her hand throughout her final day. The couple married in 1945 and had six children. 

A First Lady has the power to make people think. In 1989 Barbara Bush visited a Washington hospice where abandoned infants with the AIDS virus were being cared for. Some folks were ignorant and thought you could get AIDS from touching someone. Mrs. Bush hugged and kissed the kids pic.twitter.com/V2w41XkXlR

— West Wing Report (@WestWingReport) April 17, 2018

Mrs Bush was honoured by US President Donald Trump as an “outstanding and memorable woman of cancer” and ordered that US flags be flown at half-staff until sunset on the day of her burial. 

As the Sacramento Bee described, the former first lady’s “plainspoken manner and utter lack of pretence made her more popular at times than her husband. She brought a grandmotherly style to buttoned-down Washington, often appearing in her trademark fake pearl chokers and displaying no vanity about her white hair and wrinkles”.

Have you lost a partner or loved one after a lengthy relationship? How did you cope?