Mourners stream into the Capitol to pay tribute to Bush

One by one they came. Parents hoisting toddlers on their hips. Two women from St. Louis, in town for a neonatology conference. A doctor from Washington whose grandmother had worked in housekeeping in the White House complex. Military generals and diplomats, CIA chiefs and sports stars. And Sully the service dog.

As the body of former President George Bush lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda on Tuesday, luminaries and unknown mourners from across the country poured into the Capitol to pay tribute to a man whose inaugural vision of a “kinder” and “gentler” Republicanism has become a relic of another era.

Cindy McCain, the wife of the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona — the last person to lie in state, after his death in September — bowed her head in silence as she stood before the flag-draped coffin. Peyton Manning, the retired NFL quarterback, paid his respects, as did Chris Evert, the tennis star, and Jack Nicklaus, the golfer.

Bob Dole, 95, a former Senate Republican leader, was helped from his wheelchair to deliver a final salute to his fellow World War II veteran and one-time political rival. Colin Powell, who served Bush as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and served his son, former President George W. Bush, as secretary of state, led a delegation of generals from Operation Desert Storm, the war the elder Bush waged as commander in chief. Gina Haspel, the current director of the CIA, an agency Bush once headed, also paid her respects, as did two of her predecessors, John Brennan and George Tenet.

Tuesday’s somber procession in the Capitol was a prelude to Bush’s state funeral Wednesday morning at Washington National Cathedral, where current and former heads of state from around the world are expected. Among them are Prince Charles, representing Queen Elizabeth; King Abdullah II of Jordan and his wife, Queen Rania; and Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland. All four living former presidents — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama — will attend, as will President Donald Trump.

In a nod to his complicated relationship with the Bushes, Trump will not speak Wednesday. But Tuesday, he and his wife Melania took the presidential motorcade from the White House across the street to Blair House, the official guesthouse, to meet with George W Bush and his wife Laura, who have been staying there at Trump’s invitation.

Wednesday’s service may be devoid of the pageantry of some state funerals past. There will, for example, be no riderless horse or horse-drawn caisson carrying the coffin to the cathedral. “George Bush did everything fast in life — golf, boating, sky diving, and now his funeral,” said his longtime spokesman, Jim McGrath. “No pauses, no slow caissons.”

The thousands who moved through the Capitol to pay their respects Tuesday held memorial cards with Bush’s photo and life highlights, and filled the pages of condolence books with remembrances and prayers.

Some, like William Knox of Austin, Texas, came out of curiosity. He was in town for a wedding and decided to drop by. Others, like Sue Ameiss and Patricia Nash of St. Louis, who were attending the neonatology conference, considered it “an honor,” as Ameiss said, “to be able to come and pay our respects.”

And some, like Wyatt Glennon, a seventh-grader from northwest Washington, came because their parents thought they should. Accompanied by his mother, Wyatt left a note in the condolence book for the former president, thanking him for “taking this great nation to new heights.”

“I don’t know much about his individual acts,” he said in an interview, “but I know that he was president of the United States, and that’s enough for me.”

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, former Bush aides had a memorial of their own Tuesday evening: At 6:41 pm — the time was to commemorate Bush as the 41st president — they paused from a reunion they were holding at the Chamber of Commerce building across the street from the White House to shine electric candles or their cellphone flashlights — a recreation of the “thousand points of light” that Bush spoke of as a way to promote volunteerism. Trump, who once mocked the initiative, paid his respects to Bush with a visit to the Rotunda on Monday night.

The sailors on the USS George HW Bush, the Navy aircraft carrier and namesake of the former president, also planned on a “thousand points of light” commemoration, and organizers were encouraging charities across the country to do the same at 6:41 pm local time.

Inside the Capitol Rotunda, the crowds fell into silence before the coffin, draped in its American flag. There was quiet except for the clicking of shoes as the guards changed places and the rapid-fire shutters of cameras when Sully, the service dog, was led into the hall with a group of wounded veterans and other disabled people around 11 am

The yellow Labrador was paired with Bush earlier this year, shortly after the death of his wife, Barbara. Sully's appearance — he was escorted by his trainer and Tom Ridge, a longtime friend of Bush and a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania — was intended to spotlight the president’s role in passing the Americans With Disabilities Act, a 1990 law that bars discrimination against people with disabilities.

“The fact that President Bush signed into law the ADA is one of the most important things that has happened in this country’s history and to me and my family,” said Rob Pedigo, 38, of Winchester, Kentucky, who was paralysed in an auto accident 20 years ago. He came with his wife and their young son to view the coffin alongside Sully.

By Tuesday evening, members of the extended Bush clan — including George W. and his brother, former Florida Gov Jeb Bush — arrived at the Capitol to thank visitors for coming.

Brittan Collett, a public relations manager from Tampa, was cradling her 5-month old daughter, Sienna, just feet from the elder Bush’s coffin, when the former president happened by. Bush promptly picked up the baby, to a chorus of aaawws, and smiled for the cameras. Collett offered simple words of condolence to the former president.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said.

c.2018 New York Times News Service