Obama Leaving Campaign To Be With His Ailing Grandmother
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack
Her health is one of the reasons he took that week long vacation early in the year in Hawaii. But, of course, the pundits didn’t know that so they hammered him for vacationing in a “foreign” locale.
I doubt they’ll criticize him now.
Madelyn Dunham, 85, was released from a hospital late last week and returned to her home in Honolulu with a health condition the aide described as “very serious.”Obama’s decision to cancel campaign events “underscores the seriousness of the situation,” senior aide Robert Gibbs told reporters during an evening flight after a campaign event in Orlando.
As the Illinois Democrat recounted in his memoirs, Dunham, his maternal grandmother, acted in many ways as a surrogate parent.
At one point in his youth, Obama left his mother and sister, who were living in Indonesia, and returned to Hawaii to attend private school and live with “Gramps” and the grandmother he called “Toot.”
“She poured everything she had into him,” Gibbs said of Obama’s grandmother.
To my knowledge, she’s the last close family member he has left. Certainly not something you’d expect to be facing when you’re 47, but there it is.
My thoughts and prayers are with them.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:50 am
Okay this just puts one more point in Obama’s corner for me. Just personal opinion here, but this just indicates to me that there’s one thing he puts before his public service, and that’s caring for his family. This seems to indicate a genuine capacity to love from him. It has a very human aspect to it. I see this as a very good thing.
My thoughts and prayers are with them as well.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:23 am
Grandmas are integral. I am a playwright & professor of theater. The most emotionally laden soliloquies of all colege theater students in New York cITY ARE SENSITIVE COMPASSIONATE gRANDMA ONES! They never fail to bring tears to the eyes of all. In the words of the musical “70 Girls 70″ ———–’go visit your Grandmother.’ When will this youth-obsessed, superficial-motored culture re-recognize wisdom comes with age; information comes from Internet?
October 21st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
From a purely crass political point of view – (my thoughts and prayers are with the family) – Obama’s trip home works in his favor. It blunts attacks from McCain in the coming days, shows Obama to be the genuine person he actually is – rather than the scary mystery man of the robo-calls, highlights his white working class roots, and is all about family. Not that any of that matters. I hope she recovers.