John Culberson: “My colleague is right. All of America is better because Barbara Bush has lived. All of us are better people for having…”

“My colleague is right. All of America is better because Barbara Bush has lived. All of us are better people for having known and admired Barbara Bush. She has been a source of inspiration to me, as I know she has been to my colleague from Dallas and the millions of Americans. People from all over the world poured into Houston to celebrate her life and to pay tribute to her as she lay in repose at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, people from all walks of life. {time} 1900 As my colleague, Dr. Burgess, said, she, in a very simple gesture, with a patient who was ill with HIV, broke down the stigma that people felt, the fear people felt that HIV might be contagious. Barbara Bush just acted instinctively, as she always did, with courage and compassion, in hugging that young man that was ill and demonstrating to the world that no one needed to fear people who were ill with HIV. And now that disease has been contained and rolled back. It is a treatable condition. She devoted her life to, as my colleague from Dallas said, helping those who were less fortunate. Barbara Bush was born in 1925, June 8, in New York City. And as my colleague, Dr. Burgess said, she was one of only two women in American history who was both a wife and a mother to a United States President. She was the wife of the 41st President, George H.W. Bush; and mother to the 43rd President, George W. Bush. Barbara was only 18 years old when she married George Herbert Walker Bush in 1945.…”