Madelyn Dunham, Obama's grandmother, passes away
Madelyn Dunham, Barack Obama's maternal grandmother, died peacefully in her sleep early this morning after a long struggle with cancer.
She was, by all accounts, a remarkable woman whose legacy lives on in her grandson.
Although Mrs. Dunham was too ill to join her grandson on the trail, she followed the campaign closely on television. It's tragic that she won't get to see Obama win tomorrow.
As I've covered this campaign, my thoughts have returned time and time again to the people who won't be here to celebrate the end of the Bush era. Studs Terkel, Utah Phillips, David Foster Wallace, and especially, my dad.
Tomorrow's going to be bittersweet.
Molly Ivins.
Posted by: Joey Maloney | November 03, 2008 at 08:46 PM
Definitely.
Posted by: Lindsay Beyerstein | November 03, 2008 at 08:50 PM
Molly would have had so much fun with this electino
Posted by: justawriter | November 03, 2008 at 09:10 PM
My father died a while ago, but would have loved to see this day. My mother died last year; I wish she had lived long enough to see Barack Obama elected. She hated what has gone on for the last eight years.
Bittersweet for sure.
Posted by: Mike | November 03, 2008 at 09:30 PM
Her vote got counted!
Robert Anton Wilson, George Carlin and Bill Hicks are three more I've been thinking about lately, I'm starting to feel like all these people that came before us have a lasting legacy that might shape the future more then they would of hoped possible. For years the slide into primate herd behavior has been incredibly depressing.
Posted by: TomK | November 03, 2008 at 10:11 PM
Add my mom to this list.
Oh yeah, George Carlin...may he rest in peace. Molly Ivins too.
Posted by: Lesley | November 03, 2008 at 11:29 PM
Add my mom to the list. She'd have been astonished and thrilled to see someone who may, against all odds we've become accustomed to believe for the half millennium since the first African slave set foot in the New World, possibly win its most powerful office tomorrow.
I have to laugh when I imagine her reaction -unalloyed rage most likely- to Palin's nomination. Her bitterest, and funniest, invective was reserved for precisely the sort of tacky, grasping, know-nothing, slobbery of which Palin is an avatar.
Oh, and Kurt Vonnegut.
Posted by: cfrost | November 04, 2008 at 04:03 AM
Steve Gilliard
Posted by: Mike | November 04, 2008 at 02:10 PM
I agree, Lindsay.
Before I came here I blogged David Rosenbaum who I firmly believe was murdered by the bush regime. Then I was thinking while on the way here .. that I would start a list of folks that I believed were taken out/reputation destroyed by the bush regime. (peter jennings and more journalists than I can even think of just now)
Who would have dreamed it would be EIGHT YEARS? I was so stunned in 2004 I actually started a personal poll asking folks if they voted for him.
And, of course, a brave man like your dad should definitely be here for this moment.
I'm sad for that, too.
With time, even though it NEVER matters you begin to see that they're here more than ever. It's the not seeing them that keeps it hard.
Posted by: voxy | November 06, 2008 at 01:55 AM
yes steve gilliard. I never knew him before he left and i find myself going to see what he thought of this or that. I call him my black twinner.
MOLLY IVINS !!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: voxy | November 06, 2008 at 01:57 AM