I was watching president Gerald Ford’s state funeral yesterday evening when I was doing cardio at the gym. Betty Ford stood there bravely with a stoic tight-lipped smile facing a procession of national dignitaries as they marched past her. Some of the men gave her a very slight nod, some didn’t make eye contact with her as they walked by. She stood, looking frail and small despite holding her head high, her hand tucked into the crook of Major General Guy Swan’s uniformed elbow. I forget what military position Swan held, but it’s his place to escort the wife of a deceased president during the funeral. Betty didn’t even come up to his shoulder. When the last man in the line walked past her, I watched Betty’s face crumple slightly and she shook in what appeared to be a sob. Swan, looking properly straight ahead, reached over discreetly with his free hand and patted Betty’s old wrinkled hand on his right elbow comfortingly, perhaps having heard her light sob or felt her shaking. It was only momentary as she regained her composure mere seconds after. But in that second, my heart broke with her. If the elliptical trainer didn’t have arm rails, I probably would’ve fallen off that thing sideways. Betty had such a long, close marriage with her husband. When his job put in in the White House, she and their kids moved in there with him. It was their home, not just his office as it is to our politicians these days. I think Arnold Schwarzenegger’s family still lives somewhere fairly local in Southern California, and he comes and goes, spending a few days here and then in Sacramento. Betty was right by Ford’s side through his long life. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to know your husband’s health is failing for the last few months, and then instead of taking as long as you need to mourn privately, you have to follow a scripted protocol for a televised international funeral. I didn’t realize this until the cameras closed in on her face, but as brave as she was sometimes standing by Swan, at other times escorted by vice president Cheney, the lower third of Betty’s clear eyes were always swimming in tears. What was she thinking, standing there for hours like that, and in Statuary Hall? Was she remembering how her own children had run around with Johnson’s children playing hide and seek around the statues? Was she remembering visiting her husband as he sat behind the large desk in the Oval Office for 2.5 years? Was she thinking about how wonderful the Navy choir sounded, and how straight and still the uniformed pallbearers stood, in order to keep her mind off the reason they were all there? I hope her heart (having gone through a quadruple bypass in ’87) heals quickly, surrounded by her children and their family this new year.