Today the former first lady joined her husband, former President Barack Obama, for an address to stakeholders at the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois. (The center opens to the public on June 19.) For the occasion, Obama chose to pay homage to her mother, Marian Robinson, who died in 2024 at 86 years old.

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The choice was especially poignant given that Robinson was born on the South Side of Chicago, where the Obama Presidential Center is based. She was also a regular fixture during the Obama Era, moving to the White House with the First Family. “We needed her. The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” the Obamas wrote on Medium after Robinson’s death.
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Obama detailed her experience with grief and loss on Instagram. “We lost my mother a year ago, but somehow, it almost feels like she’s with us more and more each day,” she wrote in 2025. “I notice it in the way I channel her when I’m giving advice to my daughters, or catching up with my brother Craig, or sitting down for dinner with Barack. She’s not with us, but she is.” Today, by wearing her on her skirt, Michelle Obama is keeping her mother with her.