‘Achingly beautiful’ photo of Barack Obama and mother-in-law resurfaces as Marian Robinson dies aged 86

Tributes have flooded social media after it was announced Michelle Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, had died at the age of 86 - with one photo of her with Barack Obama resurfacing online.

Describing her mum as her “rock” and a “steady backstop for our entire family”, Michelle shared the news that Robinson had passed away on Friday morning, along with a written tribute from the family.

It reads: “The trappings and glamour of the White House were never a great fit for Marian Robinson. ‘Just show me how to work the washing machine and I’m good,’ she’d say.

“Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument. The only guest she made a point of asking to meet was the Pope.”

The Medium post also goes on to note Robinson made “great friends” with ushers and butlers working in the famous American building.

It continues: “We will all miss her greatly, and we wish she were here to offer us some perspective, to mend our heavy hearts with a laugh and a dose of her wisdom.

“What is also true — although she adamantly denied it — is that there was and will be only one Marian Robinson. In our sadness, we are lifted up by the extraordinary gift of her life. And we will spend the rest of ours trying to live up to her example.”

And as ‘rest in peace’ trends on Twitter/X with people paying their respects, one particular image has resurfaced of Barack Obama and Robinson sitting together on a sofa, holding hands:

In a video on the Obama Foundation YouTube channel, Barack said of the iconic snap: “I sat next to her and I grabbed her hand and we held hands just as it was announced that the projections were I was going to win, and I said, ‘how are you feeling?’

“And she said, ‘well, it’s just a little overwhelming, isn’t it?’”

Meanwhile, Michelle shared her memories of the moment in her memoir Becoming, writing that after her husband asked if she was “ready” for her daughter and son-in-law to enter the White House, she just shrugged.

“Later, though, she’d describe to me how overcome she’d felt right then, struck just as I’d been by his vulnerability. America had come to see Barack as self-assured and powerful, but my mother also recognised the gravity of the passage, the loneliness of the job ahead.

“The next time I looked over, I saw that she and Barack were holding hands,” she said.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.