As Utah’s political leaders remember the life and mourn the death of George H.W. Bush, who died late Friday at age 94, Sen. Orrin Hatch shared a poem he’d written to the former president and his wife back in 2013.
The Utah Republican tweeted out a copy of the 11-line poem on Monday, which is handwritten on paper carrying the official United States Senate letterhead and dated January 15, 2013.
“You are resplendent in years / and worth all the tears / as we worry / and hurry / Through each eventful day / in this great land made greater still by God’s firm hand / and your strong will / that searched for the better way / every day,” the poem reads.
Hatch worked closely with the elder Bush’s administration and said in a tweet after the former president’s death on Saturday that he was “among the greatest heroes of the American Century."
“The breadth and depth of his service are without parallel,” Hatch wrote. “Before rising to the highest office in the land, he was a decorated Navy pilot, a congressman from the state of Texas, an ambassador to the United Nations, a CIA director, and of course, the vice president of the United States. He was the man who pulled back the Iron Curtain, shining the warm sunlight of freedom where freedom had grown cold. His influence — in global affairs, in American domestic policy, and in our hearts — cannot be overstated.”
Sen.-elect Mitt Romney, Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Mia Love, Rep. Chris Stewart, Rep. John Curtis and Gov. Gary Herbert were also among the Utah politicians who shared their condolences online over the weekend, where they described Bush as a statesman who brought out the good in people.
Bush was a World War II aviator, a congressman, CIA director and U.N. ambassador and he presided as president over the final days of the Soviet Union. He visited Utah three times during his one term in office while campaigning for a second term he didn’t win.
Bush will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda for public viewing on Wednesday morning, following by a state funeral at the Washington National Cathedral, according to The New York Times. He will then be buried on the grounds of his presidential library and museum at Texas A&M University in College Station next to his wife, Barbara, who died in April.
