DALLAS — Former first lady Laura Bush says in her new book that she lost her faith for many years after her pleas to God to spare the life of a high school classmate whose car she hit were not answered.
Bush talks in detail for the first time publicly of the accident she was involved in as a 17-year-old in Midland, Texas, that killed her friend Mike Doug las. She says she and a girlfriend were on their way to a drive-in theater Nov. 6, 1963, when she ran a stop sign and hit Douglas’ car.
The memoir, “Spoken from the Heart,” is set for release next week. A copy of the 456- page book was obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Guilt over the accident consumed her for years, and she regretted not visiting Douglas’ parents after the accident.
Bush says in the book that when she became a mother, she began to fully understand what his parents had gone through. She says that after a high school classmate of her twin daughters committed suicide, she insisted that they visit the friend’s parents.
The former first lady also talks about meeting George W. Bush — the man she fell in love with for his humor and steadfastness — and her time in the White House. She dispels rumors that she ever considered leaving her husband over his drinking, saying she never told him it was “Jim Beam or me.”
She says that while his drinking was indeed a problem at one point, they loved each other and never considered divorce.
But she says he was “a bore” when he drank too much and she felt he could be a “better man.”
