One of Walker Stapleton’s first memories of his cousin, President George H.W. Bush, came on a fishing trip when the future Colorado treasurer was 6 years old.
It was just the two of them that day. As they waited for bites on the line, the future president — who had just been asked the day before to be Ronald Reagan’s vice president — looked over at young Stapleton.
“He told me, ‘public service is a noble calling,’ ” Stapleton remembered. “It’s a great thing to do, and you should find a way to do it sometime.”
The 6-year-old didn’t know what it meant at the time. “But he was the singular inspiration for my deciding to pursue public service,” Stapleton said.
Outpourings of respect ricocheted around the world Saturday for former President George H.W. Bush, who died Friday at 94. In Colorado, the Stapleton family joined in remembering the family patriarch, a man who spent his life in public service. Walker Stapleton’s mother, Debbie Walker Stapleton, is a first cousin of the elder Bush.
Stapleton, the Republican nominee for governor, told The Denver Post on Saturday that he spoke to Bush for the last time a few weeks ago.
“He just said, ‘I love you,’ ” Stapleton said. “I told him, ‘I love you back.’ ”
Bush was always a good listener, Stapleton said, and he hated talking about himself. As Parkinson’s disease took its toll in the past few years, however, he had an especially hard time speaking at length. But his mind was clear, Stapleton said, and the disease made him an even better listener.
“I’d sit with him and talk about what’s meaningful in life,” Stapleton said.
Stapleton said he and his wife, Jenna, will travel to Washington, D.C., as the former president lies in state at the Capitol Rotunda from Monday through Wednesday. There will then be a funeral service Wednesday at the Washington National Cathedral.
“There are some people in life you wish could live forever,” he said.
His enduring memories of Bush, Stapleton said, come from trips to the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Over nearly four decades, he had a front-row seat to observe Bush’s innate ability to talk to anyone and everyone, no matter their background.
“He could be meeting King Hussein of Jordan and then in the next room room have a family barbecue and talk to a 10-year-old about what happened in the Red Sox game that night,” Stapleton said. “He had an incredible ability to make people understand he cared about them.”
A prime example of Bush’s attitude toward those around him, Stapleton said, came during his presidency. Bush traveled to the deep South to give a eulogy for the longtime White House elevator operator.
“He didn’t tell the press; he didn’t do it with fanfare,” Stapleton said. “He did it because it came from his heart.”
Although Stapleton’s two younger children haven’t been fully able to grasp their family member’s passing, Stapleton said, his 10-year-old, Craig, was able to spend time with Bush in the past few years. One of Stapleton’s most-treasured pictures, he said, is Bush holding Craig at his christening, kissing the baby’s forehead. Inscribed on the photo, “Craig, have the greatest life,” Stapleton said.
Stapleton watched people gravitate toward Bush, whether they were New England fishermen or football stars J.J. Watt and golfer Phil Mickelson. He was respected by Democrats and Republicans alike.
“The reason people loved George Bush so much,” Stapleton said, “was because he was an unfailingly kind human being who had an immense capacity to treat people from all backgrounds with decency, respect and care.
“I think that is a level of kindness we could desperately use more of these days.”
As he got into public service, Stapleton never forgot that fishing outing from his youth. On election night last month, after Stapleton lost the governor’s race to Democrat Jared Polis, he tucked a line into his concession speech — an homage to his influential family member — that got little notice.
“Public service is a noble calling,” Stapleton told his supporters that night. “Any definition of a successful life at some point must include service to others.”
