Just before Barack Obama gave his farewell address to the nation on Tuesday night in Chicago, his family was ushered to special seats. We watched as his wife, Michelle, her mother Marian Robinson, daughters Malia and Sasha . . .
Wait, no Sasha? Where was Sasha? She wasn’t there to see her father’s last presidential speech? Whatever could be wrong? Was she sick? Should we worry about the little girl we’d seen grow up in the White House? The answer, it turned out, was not complicated.
Sasha had an important test the next day and stayed in Washington. Turns out that according to her school’s strict rules, “absence for travel is not an adequate reason to reschedule an exam.” It was one any family might understand – and approve of.
That didn’t, though, mean her dad couldn’t give her a shout-out while his wife and older daughter looked on.
“Malia and Sasha, under the strangest of circumstances you have become two amazing young women. You are smart and you are beautiful. But more importantly, you are kind and you are thoughtful and you are full of passion. And you wore the burden of years in the spotlight so easily. Of all that I have done in my life, I am most proud to be your dad.”
There were few dry eyes in that house – or in a lot of houses.
Most Americans, I think, are going to miss the Obamas. Even those who aren’t fans of the president’s policies admit to an admiration for his devotion to his family, his dignity, his decency.
That decency and dignity were particularly in evidence when he proudly represented the country on the international stage or – more sadly – when he donned the role of mourner-in-chief on unfortunately too numerous occasions, from Charleston to Newtown to Fort Hood, and addressed the grieving nation.
We’ve come to expect his extraordinary eloquence – in soaring times as well as in moments of wrenching sorrow – as our due. We will miss it.
And Barack’s grace has been matched by that of Michelle Obama, who has been widely admired during her time as first lady – but has also been the repeated target of rancidly racist insults by slugs who fester in the darker reaches of the Internet, attacks she must be aware of. But – as she likes to say – “when they go low, we go high.” And she does.
She has worked doggedly to focus national attention on children’s exercise and nutrition – her White House vegetable garden has been a great success and teaching tool – and, along with second lady Jill Biden, she’s been a zealous and effective advocate for military families.
Michelle has also had fun, whether doing push-ups with Ellen Degeneres, singing carpool karaoke with James Corden and Missy Elliott, or mom dancing with Jimmy Fallen. She’s hit the Daily Show and sparred verbally with Stephen Colbert – as, I should add, did her husband, both doing their best to reach and involve new, non-traditional audiences.
During his Chicago speech, Barack went out of his way to pay tribute to his wife of 24 years, saying she took on “a role you didn’t ask for and made it your own with grace and with grit and with style and with good humor.
“You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody. And a new generation sets its sights higher because it has you as a role model. You have made me proud and you have made the country prouder.”
I don’t think Michelle’s fans would disagree.
Particularly admirable was the way the Obamas went out of their way to make their home of eight years a place that welcomed all Americans, whether famed musicians, writers and actors or simply ordinary Americans who came for a tour and were sometimes greeted by the president or first lady.
Using the White House as a venue for the arts isn’t unique to this administration – Laura Bush was especially devoted to cultural activities – but the Obamas seemed to put it on steroids, particularly with events for children.
I’m not surprised.
We saw Barack Obama just once, in 2008 at a house party, where – before he spoke – he sat on the stairs to engage in earnest conversation with a young child with Down syndrome who’d tugged at his pants leg.
Similarly, the one time we saw Michelle, she addressed a gathering of Granite Staters at a closed mill in Peterborough. After speaking, she walked over to talk quietly with a couple of young girls she’d spotted who’d clearly been pulled out of school by their mother to see the possible first lady.
The Obamas’ shared affinity for children was obvious, and it’s not surprising that Christmas parties, Easter egg hunts and Halloween were particularly festive occasions at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Not only did the Obamas invite the people into their home, they went out into the district, their neighborhood. They’d walk to church, go out for dinner, grab a quick hamburger from time to time. It’s said that Michelle even took walks nearby without attracting attention. And one of their rituals was spending Martin Luther King Day as volunteers – at a soup kitchen one year, helping at a shelter or school for the children of military families another.
And, of course, the whole country caught glimpses of the first family on vacations – going out for ice cream, or bicycling along country roads – and, at Christmas, stocking up on gifts at the local bookseller’s emporium. These people really read books.
We will miss them.
And in our house – as is the case, I suspect, across the country – we will also miss our second couple, Joe and Jill Biden, other exemplars of dignity and decency – and grace, as they showed when their oldest son, Beau, died last year.
Obama and Biden, who seemed to be an unlikely pair initially, became not only good partners but close friends.
It was fitting that in a surprise ceremony on Thursday the president awarded Biden – the man he called his brother – the highest honor he had to give: The Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, something rarely given, for Biden’s half-century of public service. There couldn’t be a more deserving recipient.
Goodbye, and thank you all for your service.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)