Reagans’ Rebellious Daughter Reconciles With Her...

Years of rebellion are over for Ronald Reagan’s renegade daughter, who is torn by emotion this Father’s Day as the former President copes with old age and the terror of Alzheimer’s disease.

Melancholy, remorse and love are tugging at Patti Davis.

“The most important thing people should know is that he [Reagan] has this wonderful serenity. He’s doing well,” Davis told the Associated Press in a recent interview. The family has agreed not to talk about medical details.

“I think [Father’s Day] takes on more meaning now. I have a deep sense of reverence now. I know Mother’s Day this year had far more meaning than it has in the past. Father’s Day will have the same feeling,” said Davis.

“Just think,” she added, “people decided one day that a day should be set aside for motherhood and fatherhood. What a great concept that is.”

Reagan, 84, has been out of the public eye since his poignant Nov. 5, 1994, handwritten letter to “My fellow Americans” disclosing that he is afflicted with Alzheimer’s.

Davis said her father has been enjoying himself in recent months, relishing his daughter’s reconciliation with the family after years of estrangement.

Davis had embarrassed the Reagans in recent years by speaking out against her father’s politics, posing nude in magazine and video layouts for Playboy, and writing an erotic novel.

“It is such a joy for him to see my mother and me together. I had a choice: Am I going to try to look at it in a loving, forgiving way, or am I going to be a punk?” Davis said.

Reagan routinely visits his Santa Barbara County mountaintop ranch, plays golf regularly and goes to his Century City office five days a week, said Reagan spokeswoman Joanne Drake. Interview requests were declined.

“The Reagans want Americans to remember the President as vigorous rather than in deterioration,” said a source close to the family who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He won’t one day be found wandering the streets near his Bel-Air home in the wee hours: He’s constantly under the gaze of a Secret Service contingent, the source said.

Reagan no longer delivers $50,000 speeches and only occasionally ventures into public to dine with friends. Recently, diners stood up and applauded when the Reagans got up to leave after dinner at Matteo’s in Westwood.

Milton Berle was entering the restaurant at the same time and Berle jokingly acknowledged the applause as though it were for him.

“Hi Miltie,” Reagan said.

Davis recently penned the 122-page “Angels Don’t Die, My Father’s Gift of Faith,” a moving elegy about Reagan’s lessons of life she has absorbed during her 42 years.

“He hasn’t said anything to me about it, but I know from my mother that he was moved. He is so shy emotionally, I wouldn’t expect him to discuss it,” said Davis. “I don’t try to pin him down.

“They cried, and I cried as well. There are tears, but tears aren’t always bad.”

In “Angels Don’t Die,” Davis wrote: “I have a feeling of reverence about my father being in his 80s--a feeling that I want to whisper, take soft steps, not intrude too much. He’s like a stately old cathedral to me now.”