Then Again - Diane Keaton [76]
There were many spectacular aspects to the White House, but the role of First Lady was not one of them. Even though she carries the burden of presenting the quintessential “American” family to the public, as well as rallying behind her favorite charities, visiting schools, hosting parties for traveling dignitaries, and privately advising her husband on the state of the union—all of it under the scrutiny of an entire nation—it’s not considered a job and she’s not paid.
We stood in front of the official First Lady portraits and listened to the guide tell us each woman was given the right to choose her own artist. A right? Who else was going to choose? I learned Eleanor Roosevelt felt she was so homely, she insisted that Douglas Chandor’s portrait focus on her finest feature, her hands. The upper part of the painting was a typical portrait, until it bled into a kind of second painting, devoted to a series of monotone inserts of Mrs. Roosevelt’s hands knitting and holding glasses—in short, engaged in the completion of domestic tasks. This was the same woman who, in 1948, was touted as a running mate for Harry Truman. Even Eleanor Roosevelt had to conform to the demands of a First Lady in the fourth decade of the twentieth century. Barbara Bush’s newly hung painting was nothing if not predictable, until I noticed the framed portrait within the portrait of her dog, Millie—not her children or grandchildren, but Millie the dog—on the table next to her. Jackie Kennedy’s was alluring in a distant, subdued sort of way. Very sixties. Nancy Reagan chose the same artist, Aaron Shikler, hoping to mirror Jackie’s legacy. The difference was that Nancy, ever opposed to monochromatic colors, chose a red dress—a bright red dress. Nancy wanted to be Jackie in primary colors.
All of this goes to say what? An elite list of highly qualified unpaid women became First Ladies of the United States. What can I say? I hope Dexter will live long enough to witness all working women, including the First Lady, earning equal pay for equal work. Maybe she’ll even see a portrait of a First Husband hanging on that wall.
Home Again
After viewing home life at the White House, home was on my mind. I couldn’t wait to get back to Los Angeles. I was worried about Mother, whose failing memory skills were becoming more apparent. While I was in New York, she wrote a letter that became the official diagnosis of her illness.
Dear Diane,
Dr. Cummings told me I have the onset of ALZHEIMER’S, but I’m not buying it without further tests. I don’t really know how I’ll handle it, if it’s true. I don’t want to give up … . I admit I’m unable to recall names, and events sometimes, but not always. I must stop writing about my lapses of memory and work on recall. I have to keep trying but it “ain’t easy,” as Mary Hall would have said. The worst of it is people talk to me carefully. They’re deferential and aware that I will undoubtedly forget something or make a mistake in judgment. I find myself unable to remember words like genes and chromosomes, nor do I know how to spell them. (It is genes.) How do I tell my friends I have Alzheimer’s? Just don’t.
Love,
Mom
In 1993 Mom had written she had Alzheimer’s disease and it was “scary.” But this letter two years later confirmed the inevitable. She finally understood what she hadn’t remembered to admit. You see, Mom forgot to remember she was one of five million victims of the “forgetting” disease. I called Robin. Mother had just phoned her, saying she wanted to cancel her life insurance and empty out the house Dad had bought next door on Cove Street, knowing she’d eventually need help. She also said she wanted to be sure to commit suicide before she got bad. She was adamant, adding that she was going to take care of it. When I called Dorrie, she burst into tears.
Not a moment too soon, Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn and I wrapped The First Wives Club by dancing down the streets of New York, singing “You Don’t Own Me.” The next day Dexter and I flew back to California to begin our real life together.