President George H.W. Bush’s funeral kicked off with a sweet gesture between his son and former first lady Michelle Obama.
All the living presidents and their wives were sitting together in the first row of Washington’s National Cathedral, and when former President George W. Bush arrived, he greeted all of them. He shook hands with President Trump, Melania Trump and former President Barack Obama, but when he got to Michelle, he did something noticeably different. He leaned in and handed her something small, and in response, the Obamas laughed and smiled.
It’s unclear what it was, but the exchange was reminiscent of one that took place at the funeral in September of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. As Michelle Obama later revealed, George W. was handing her a cough drop; so everyone is assuming that he was repeating the gesture at his father’s funeral.
“President Bush and I, we are forever seatmates because of protocol, and that’s how we sit at all the official functions,” Michelle Obama said in an interview on the Today show in October. “He’s my partner in crime at every major thing where all the ‘formers’ gather. So we’re together all the time,” she added. “I love him to death,” she gushed. “He’s a wonderful man, he’s a funny man.”
So, that explains the initial cough drop exchange. “It was a simple gesture,” she said of what happened at McCain’s funeral. George W. Bush was getting a cough drop from his wife, and she wanted one too. “I looked over and I said, ‘Hand me a cough drop.’” And a tradition was started.
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