[Acknowledging that the death of a former president of Reagan's stature would be] a big unwieldy one -- a world event, ... grab onto the massive grief around us and go home at night to the shape of the grief inside us.

I don't know why Alzheimer's was allowed to steal so much of my father before releasing him into the arms of death. But I know that at his last moment, when he opened his eyes, eyes that had not opened for many, many days, and looked at my mother, he showed us that neither disease nor death can conquer love.

Texas governor Rick Perry's wife, Anita, has come out slugging in her glittering leopard-print jacket against what she sees as the unfair treatment of her husband. She tearfully said that he has been 'brutalized' for his faith.

That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.

When my father, Ronald Reagan, was running for president in 1980, my mother, Nancy, traveled with him on the campaign trail, but she did not give speeches or even many interviews. She never stood in front of a group of reporters and expounded on her views and opinions.

I would not call myself a veteran conspiracy theorist. Or an obsessed one. I pretty much peaked on the whole conspiracy theory thing in the '60s, with the grassy knoll, who really killed JFK, and who ordered the hit on Lee Harvey Oswald.