It's very sad that Obama's grandmother is dying.  I only hope she lives another 9 days so she can see her grandson elected President:

Obama was born in Hawaii. His Kansas-born mother and Kenyan father met as college students there, but Dunham and her husband, Stanley, raised Obama for extended periods when his mother lived overseas. He spent years living in the two-bedroom apartment where Dunham is trying to recuperate from a broken hip.

In his memoir "Dreams from My Father," Obama described his grandfather as something of a dreamer. It was his grandmother who was practical enough to support the family by working her way up to vice president at a local bank.

He has often mentioned "Toot" _ his version of the Hawaiian word "tutu," or grandparent _ as an example of a strong woman succeeding through intelligence and determination. Many of his speeches describe her working on a bomber assembly line during World War II.

David Mendell, author of the biography "Obama: From Promise to Power," interviewed Dunham in 2004 and concluded that she helped ground Obama and give him a sense of pragmatism.

"You can't underestimate, I think, her influence," Mendell said. "It's only second, I think, to his mother's influence in shaping who he is. His grandfather was a little bit disconnected from the family. But she was really the woman who stabilized the household."

Dunham, who turns 86 on Sunday, has not campaigned for Obama but has followed the presidential race closely, even getting a corneal transplant so that she could see the television better. She appeared briefly in an Obama ad, a frail white woman talking about her black grandson's "depth and a broadness of view."

Obama said the decision to go to Hawaii was easy to make, telling CBS that he "got there too late" when his mother died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at age 53.

"My grandmother's the last one left," he said. "She has really been the rock of the family, the foundation of the family."

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Obama the grandson replaces Obama the candidate

CHRISTOPHER WILLS | October 24, 2008 10:21 PM EST

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/25/obama-the-grandson-replac_n_137803.html

 

HONOLULU — Barack Obama, briefly a grandson instead of a candidate, spent some quiet family time Friday with the ailing woman who helped raise him, while a clutch of reporters, guards and gawkers waited outside her apartment building.

The Democratic presidential candidate spent about six hours with 85-year-old Madelyn Dunham, after visiting her for an hour Thursday night. He was joined by his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng.

His decision to leave the campaign trail for a day and a half so close to the election reflects the depth of his relationship with Dunham and the severity of her condition.

"Without going through the details too much, she's gravely ill. We weren't sure, and I'm still not sure whether she makes it to Election Day," Obama told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast Friday.

"We're all praying and we hope she does, but one of the things I want to make sure of is I had a chance to sit down with her and to talk to her. She's still alert and she's still got all her faculties. And I want to make sure that I don't miss that opportunity," he said.