Barbara Bush, who died Tuesday, said she didn’t fear death. That may be because the 92-year-old former first lady faced it before, in the hardest way imaginable.

In 1953, soon after George H.W. Bush had moved his family to Midland, Tex., to get into the oil business, the couple’s 3-year-old daughter complained about feeling tired. Usually, Pauline Robinson “Robin” Bush, the much-doted-on only girl of the Bush kids, was as rowdy and healthy as her older brother George W. and baby brother Jeb. Barbara decided to take her to a pediatrician.

Her diagnosis was shockingly abrupt. The doctor called the Bushes a few days later with a word neither had ever heard before: leukemia. The complaint had been fatigue; the prescription was to take their child home to die.