Madelyn Dunham, Obama's Grandmother, Dies

Barack Obama with his grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, after Obama's high school graduation in 1979.

From the Mercury News:

The day before the presidential election, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign announced that his grandmother, the woman he called "Toot" who helped raise him, had died in her apartment in Honolulu.

Aides said Obama was in his hotel room Monday morning in Jacksonville, Fla., doing brief interviews with radio stations in battleground states, when he learned she had died after a long battle with cancer.

He was described as stoic upon hearing that she had died and told aides that he was grateful that he had a chance to say goodbye in person when he recently suspended his campaign for two days to return to Hawaii.

Madelyn Dunham, 86, who had been gravely ill, was a rock of stability as Obama was growing up, giving him the American roots that would ground his teenage years as well as his career in politics.
....

Speaking after news of his grandmother's death had been made public, Obama said Monday that the evening marked a "bittersweet" moment for him.

"She has gone home," he said. "She died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side, and so there is great joy as well as tears."

In a rare 2004 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Dunham, who called her grandson "Bear,"said she and her husband offered their grandson a greater sense of normalcy. "I suppose I provided stability in his life," she said.

Madelyn did not live to see the day of what I hope and pray will be the election of her grandson as president of the United States. As Obama says, "She has gone home." But she will know. She will know. It's good that Barack had the opportunity to see her and say good-bye before she died.

O God of grace and glory, we remember before you this day our sister Madelyn. We thank you for giving her to her family and friends, to know and to love as a companion on their earthly pilgrimage. In your boundless compassion, console those who mourn. Give them faith to see in death the gate of eternal life, so that in quiet confidence they may continue their course on earth, until, by your call, they are reunited with those who have gone before; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[Book of Common Prayer], p. 491 (slightly paraphrased)

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