Michelle Obama is recalling one of her last conversations with her mother, Marian Robinson.
The former First Lady, 61, discussed Marian, who died in May 2024 at age 86, during a Wednesday, November 5 event in New York City to promote her latest book, The Look.
Obama shared that she finally understood why Marian had started preparing her and brother Craig Robinson for her death when they were kids.
“What she was doing was letting us know that she loved us, but that we could live life with and without her, and I understand that now as a parent,” Obama said, per People.
She said that she wants daughters Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24, whom she shares with her husband, former President Barack Obama, “to know, ‘I love you, you love me, but you don’t need me. You know everything you need to know to be successful.’”
Obama cared for Marian toward the end of her life. According to People, as mother and daughter sat on the couch one day, Marian told Obama, “Wow, that was quick.”
Obama asked her what she meant by that, and Marian responded with one word: “Life.”
“That’s all she said, but what I got from that was even in her practical-minded way, that you’re never ready,” Michelle explained. “And I don’t think that she was done living. It just comes, and then life is over. I was like, ‘Let me hear that. Let me understand that, that even with a wonderful life, I want to be present.’”
Obama celebrated her 60th birthday in January 2024.
“I think that feeling of 60 is about trying to be present in the feeling,” she said Wednesday. “Trying to be present in this moment in my life so that this last chapter is exactly the way I want it to be.”
She said that as she reached the milestone age, “I realized how much breath-holding and decision-making I was doing to ensure my girls would turn out whole.”
Now that her kids are in their 20s, “This is the first time in my life where every single decision I make is mine,” she said. “It’s what I want to do. … What do I want, what do I feel? This is the first time that I’ve been able to do that for me, no excuses. That means that the consequences are mine, too, and there’s a freedom with that.”
She added: “If I’m lucky, I live to 90 and that’s 30 good summers.”
Recently, Obama told People that she inherited a beauty habit from Marian: A full commitment to hair-color maintenance.
“I’m coloring that gray hair,” she said. “I’m not wincing [when I see one], but I’m not leaving it there long.”
She explained: “My mother was the same way. My mother dyed her hair until the day she died. She had a beautiful sandy color blonde that mixed in well with the gray. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be doing that too.’”
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