Michelle Obama Recalls Being a Caregiver for Her Late Mother

Former first lady Michelle Obama is sharing her experience as a caregiver for her late mother, Marian Robinson, who died at 86 in May 2024. ​​

In a recent interview on NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin, the 61-year-old mother of two said her mother was sick and her body was shutting down for “a number of various reasons.” ​

​​“Her last bout of illness, she was with me in Hawaii, in our home in Hawaii, which was a blessing, right? Because she was forced to let me take care of her,” Obama said.​​

The New York Times bestselling author said her mother “didn’t want to be a burden” to her, even as she was receiving medical care. ​​

“I had doctors and nurses and everybody coming in, and we had her diet, and I was bossing her around and she was mad, and she was,‘I just wanna go home,’ ” Obama explained. ​​

“And I was like, ‘But you can’t, you’re stuck with me.’ I could just take care of her.”​​

Toward the end of the interview, Obama shared a touching conversation she had with her mother while sitting on the couch and watching TV together. Obama said her mother knew her time was “coming to the end.” ​​

“This woman that prepared me for death and talked to me about all this stuff and was like, ‘I’m ready to die — old people are around too long, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ she leaned over to me and she said, ‘Wow, this went fast,’ ” she recalled. ​​

“And I held her hand. I said, ‘What are you talking about?’And she said, ‘Life.’ She said, ‘This went fast.’ And this was the woman who was ready.” ​​

Other celebrities have recently shared their caregiving experiences. ​​

Actor Patrick Dempsey, 59, was a caregiver for his late mother, Amanda Dempsey, who battled ovarian cancer for 17 years. ​​

“In my mother’s case, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in the late ’90s,” Dempsey said in an Instagram video. “Then over the next 14 years, she would have 12 reoccurrences, so it had a profound impact on our family, and everybody in the family handles it differently.” ​​

Amanda died of ovarian cancer in 2014. ​​

Last month, actor Bradley Cooper released Caregiving, a PBS documentary about his caregiving journey with his father, who battled lung cancer. ​

His father died in 2011.​

For more information on caregiving, including tips on managing medical matters, obtaining legal paperwork, and managing in-home care, visit AARP.org.