‘The Glue That Held Us Together.’ Jenna Bush Hager Shares Tribute to Grandmother Barbara Bush

Jenna Bush Hager said her family was doing well, if sad, after her grandmother Barbara Bush passed away this week.

“I think it’s a mixture of waves of great gratitude for a life well-lived,” Bush Hager said on NBC’s Today show Thursday. “She lived the best life. Of course there’s pain and sadness because she’ll be so dearly missed.”

In a loving tribute, Bush Hager called the former First Lady, who died at the age of 92 on Tuesday, the “family’s rock” and the “glue that held us together,” in a letter read on the show. She also shared some anecdotes about her time with her grandmother, recalling how Bush once scolded her and her sister for requesting food at the White House bowling alley.

“You opened the door, telling us under no circumstances could we order food in the White House,” Bush Hager said. “This was not a hotel. You taught us humility and grace.”

Former President George H.W. Bush “misses her, of course,” Bush Hager said on Today.

“But because he loves so fiercely in his old age, he’s trying to be the one to make the jokes. He doesn’t want us to worry about it.”