When it comes to their family, the women of the Bush family are always kind of adorable. Barbara Bush, the family matriarch who died in April 2018, might just be the best of the bunch.
It turns out that the great-grandmother embroidered "reserve" Christmas stockings for the great-grandchildren she knew she wouldn't get to meet. You guys!
Jenna Bush Hager told People magazine about what finding the surprise meant to her. "I found out I was pregnant the week after my grandfather died, and I lost my three living grandparents in one year." She went on to explain that her baby boy, Hal, is "the first baby that won’t get to meet these people that were such an important part of my life."
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She continued," But, I will say, and this is such a beautiful thing — my grandmother, my dad’s mom, needlepointed a lot of stockings, reserves, for great-grandchildren that would be after she died."
Barbara Bush died on April 17, 2018, at the age of 92. She had chosen to discontinue medical care for congestive heart failure and lung disease. Jenna shared a photo on the anniversary of her death earlier this year, noting, "Missing you Ganny today and everyday. One year without our enforcer—hard believe. You made us better and we love you more than tongue can tell. ❤️✨."
Jenna has been open about how much she misses both of her grandparents. She received the perfect 10th anniversary from her husband: photos of her grandparents at their wedding. She captioned the share, "The best anniversary gift from my husband: pictures from 10 years ago of my grandparents at our wedding. A reminder: Life is precious and goes by too fast."
Jenna's grandfather, former President George H.W. Bush, died on November 30, 2018, after a long struggle with vascular Parkinson's disease. Presidents from both parties attended his funeral services, and his son George W. released a statement that read, "George H.W. Bush was a man of the highest character and the best dad a son or daughter could ask for."
Jenna also shared that her grandmother on her mother's side, Jenna Welch, was in declining health in November 2018. On Instagram she said, "She never graduated from college but never stopped learning: she taught me every constellation in the night sky and about beautiful foreign lands she would never get visit. I loved seeing her today in Midland. ."
The family was crushed when the elder Jenna passed away in May 2019. Jenna Bush Hager wrote on Instagram: "How lucky I was to be named after a woman who taught me how to slow down and appreciate every bird, and every plant in West Texas. She read us poetry and taught us about every constellation in the sky. Her kindness and graciousness were as expansive as the West Texas horizon."
Jenna and her twin sister Barbara are famously close, having weathered a very public teen experience while living in the White House. The pair even recently released a book together, and they are making the media rounds discussing it.
Aptly titled Sisters First: Stories From Our Wild and Wonderful Life, the book is described as a adventure in which the "former first daughters share intimate stories and reflections from the Texas countryside to the storied halls of the White House and beyond."
Jenna's youngest child, Henry Harold Hager, is the first baby that her grandparents did not get to meet. He was born on August 2, 2019. In the Instagram post she shared to announce his arrival, Jenna said that "our life has never been sweeter."
Luckily, though, Hal has a guardian great-grandmother looking out for him. The discovery of the heartfelt gift from Barbara was surely a reassuring moment for Jenna and her family. No doubt the almost 4-month-old will grow up hearing plenty of stories about how much is great-grandmother would have loved to know him.
Luckily for Jenna, family ties in the Bush family run deep. In addition to the incredible bond she has with her sister, Jenna is also super close to both her parents, Laura and George W. In her book, Jenna writes about mother-daughter relationships: "In leaving her note and the clipping, my mom was reminding me that she accepted and loved me — and that there is no perfect way to be a mother. While we might have questioned some of the things our mother said, we never questioned her love."
