Laura Bush a hit at United Fresh

Former first lady Laura Bush helped launch the second day of United Fresh 2012 in Dallas with a speech about her years in the White House and an update on what she and former President George W. Bush have been up to in what she calls their “afterlife” — their years after the White House.

Sharing tales that ranged from sleeping in the White House for the first time as first lady to living through Sept. 11, 2001, she said she knew she’d really arrived when a friend recently brought her a gift found in a secondhand store — the Laura Bush bobblehead doll.

She recalled returning to the White House the night of the inauguration and getting into bed with her husband and realizing that all of her close family was there, safely tucked away under one White House roof.

“I felt at peace,” she said. “How often in life is everyone you love safe, tucked into bed and accounted for?”

It became a tenuous peace, however, as the gravity of her husband’s job and eventually, the events of 9-11 took hold. Coming off the heady success of her first National Book Fair just a few days before, she said she was actually in the office of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, having gone to provide a briefing on early childhood education, when news came of a plane hitting the World Trade Center.

“As Sen. Kennedy kept up a steady stream of small talk, I think he was trying to reassure me,” she said. “But there was no reassuring anybody that day.”

On Sept. 12, she said, “I woke up to a different life.”

Her role changed and broadened, as she took up the cause of the treatment of women by the Taliban. And the burden of her husband’s already weighty job only intensified.

“There were days when there was no laughing,” she said.

Today, the Bushes live in Dallas. Both have written books, and are involved in setting up the Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University. While they’ve gotten out of politics, she said, they haven’t gotten out of policy and will be focusing on education reform, global health, human freedom and economic opportunity through the Institute.

In a Q&A after her talk, United Fresh President Tom Stenzel asked her what she misses most about life in the White House. Without hesitation, Bush answered, “The chef.”

“George really misses the chef,” she laughed.