he has been slow dying for two years. don't leave him. stay another day. it will take another 20 minutes to simmer the mixture and then dash head through a strainer and pour into a feeding tube praying that it doesn't lot. i feel a wave of russia. so sharp it is painful of the sunday mornings after breakfast going through central park stealing kisses behind rocks returning home to make supper for friends. and then slowly to step across the threshold of

paled giant under a white sheet his face dissolved into the bed. he sculpted my career. he haunted me for decades a husband who's shared my life 24 years and a man who never had time to sleep i bent over him. the surgeon's knife must have been sharp the crater was so big at first it looked like his head was corrected. don't leave yet purchased a another summer, another lifetime. [applause]

>> host: you are a pitiful reader and a beautiful writer. because just a few days before he died. >> yes. he asks the doctor how long do i have? the doctor said not long. >> guest: to do something wonderful? he could not speak very well because the tumor was at the base of his tongue. jazz? disney coca-cola club i rushed to the phone they did have a show and i said it starts in two hours kid to be ready? he pushed himself up and into a wheelchair without assistance and rolled himself to his wardrobe and picked out denies linen jacket and shirt and a cap

even let me put tinted sunscreen on his face to give him color and put him in front of the mir. how is that? he smiled. we got in a cab. several past us that we had a seven ft. african aid and she let the cab driver know who was boss. [laughter] and then reread at dizzies at lincoln center has huge window walls that look out across central park. very romantic. there was a full moon and an older man with a jazz piano in said there is feelings of futility and dark thoughts

he said i will play a song that is called life is what you make it and that was our philosophy saw last though waiter to bring swizzle sticks because he had been a drummer as the boys and he started to drum on the table in for the next two hours he drummed to the music he was lost and back in his boyhood being a drummer again. one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. we got home at midnight. he did not want to go to sleep. sudden they found his voice and gripped my hand and said that was a magical evening and two days later he died. >> host: gail sheehy update you so much.

[applause] >> i was touched early in the book to describe how dad wrote a letter to his girlfriend and he said and what you to be the mother of my children. >> time glad. [laughter] that's right. there is letters of that scattered throughout the book. he is of great letter writer may be that is sola start. so scattered throughout the

book was a series of letters some of which she wrote mom or to all of us are me when i was president. it mattered to get these notes or phone calls from dad because he knew the pressures of the job and it was trying it to have him and interject some humor made a huge difference during my presidency. i understand there is psychobabble about our relationship, but people cannot possibly comprehend it how they understand better when you ed meyers somebody in a help or

comfort obviously in the polls presidency are you calling him for a vice? and i make it clear i say not really. . .

up next on booktv, "after words" with guest host this week jonathan and his new book the birth of the pill which presents what he describes as a grand story of radical feminist politics that started with margaret sanger in the 1930s and ended with test trials in puerto rico on the cusp of the sexual revolution. this progra i