Michelle Obama is looking back on Mother’s Days in the past with her brother Craig Robinson on their podcast IMO as they reflect on their first since losing their own mom.
The siblings lost their mother Marian Robinson almost a year ago, on May 31 at the age of 86, and in a Mother’s Day wish to her followers, the former First Lady candidly addressed the loss and how she and Craig dealt with it.
“This Mother’s Day will mark my first without my mom,” she penned. “My mom was many things: whipsmart, fiercely independent, kind, courageous, and determined. She was incredibly forward thinking, and was someone we could always count on to be there for us, especially during those White House years.”
Michelle continued: “For Craig and me, reflecting on her life on @imopodcasts has become a true form of solace, and we hope the episode will be helpful to those experiencing the same.”
“To all those who are missing their mom or mother-figure a little extra today, we send you so much love.”
She included a clip of the pair discussing their period of grief and fighting through the first instinct to say “I’m good” when you’re asked, with Craig, 63, reflecting on how much she was “beloved” by people in Michelle’s “gigantic” orbit specifically.
© AP“We spent a lot of time managing everybody else’s grief and we really haven’t talked much about our own grief,” Craig remarked, with Michelle, 61, enthusing that their mom was “amazingly, in her own right after all these years, a famous person.”
“I got letters from heads of state, ambassadors,” she continued. “She became a world figure…that’s a pretty amazing thing.”
To mark the day on a lighter note, though, former POTUS Barack Obama took to social media to pay tribute to Michelle herself as a mom to their two daughters, 26-year-old Malia and 23-year-old Sasha.
© Instagram“Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing moms and mother-figures!” he wrote alongside a black and white archival photo of Michelle with the girls. “@MichelleObama, the girls and I are so lucky to have you in our lives. We love you.”
On her podcast, the author also revealed the three words that the 44th President jokingly told her after her mom’s death: “You’re next up.”
She responded to the way the phrase shook her and made her realize the responsibilities that came with becoming a family matriarch. “That’s sort of the darned thing about being a grown-up. When you lose your parents, you’re next up.”
© Getty Images“That’s really when you become an adult, when your parents are not in that spot of managing and maintaining. But that’s going to happen at some point, where each of us in our own lives, we become the parent, we become the convener, we become the glue.”
“I guess if anything with mom’s loss, I thank God you’re my big brother and I have a husband who’s older,” she told Craig, then remembering quipping back to Barack: “‘I’m not really ready to be next up.’ I told him, ‘You’re next up. And Craig is next up. I delegate that power to you’.”
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