In August of 2006, Newsweek magazine interviewed Billy Graham. Amazed by Billy's attitude in spite of deteriorating health, the author of the article wrote, "He seems congenitally incapable of surrendering completely to the weakness of the body."

One of Dr. Graham's daughters, Anne Graham-Lotz, recounted a conversation with her father on the subject of aging. "All my life, I've been taught how to die," Billy told her, "but no one ever taught me how to grow old." She replied, "Well, Daddy, you are now teaching all of us."

Lotz also noted that she had learned an important lesson about aging after observing her father: "When you get older, secondary things, like politics, begin to fall away, and the primary things become primary again. And for Daddy, the primary thing is, as Jesus said, to try to love God totally and to love our neighbor as ourselves."