A family photo of a young Obama with his grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham
The last leg of the campaign got a lot tougher for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama today. His beloved grandmother passed away overnight in Hawaii. Obama reportedly found out about 86-year-old Madelyn Dunham’s death this morning.
Dunham had been battling cancer. Then, she broke her hip and her health began to fail. Obama left the campaign trail last month for a couple of days to spend some time with the grandmother he affectionately called, “Toot,” which is short for “tutu” the word for grandmother in Hawaiian.
In a statement released today by Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the siblings called their grandmother, “..the cornerstone of our family.” Dunham helped raise Obama. During his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention he praised Dunham for her sacrifice and instilling in him good solid values. Obama said, “… she poured everything she had into me.”
Madelyn Dunham did not live to see the outcome of this historic presidential election. Yet, I have to believe there was much she saw in her final days that made her very proud of Barack Obama. The candidate plans to stick to his schedule of last minute campaign events.
