Barack Obama’s 86-year-old grandmother, ‘Toot’ (as he affectionately calls her) is gravely ill. He has made a decision to leave his campaign trail – just 11 days before the election – on Thursday and Friday to travel to Hawaii. He will spend a couple of days with her and travel back on Saturday.

Obama’s grandparents, Madelyn and Stanely Dunham helped raise their daughter, Ann’s son. In his convention speech, Obama lauded his grandmother as an anchor of his life.

He often refers to his grandmother in speeches. In his speech on race he said:

“I can no more disown [Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother, a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe”

In a campaign ad this year, he described his grandmother, as the daughter of a Midwest oil company clerk who:

 ”taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland” _ things like “accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated.”

Picture credit: AP

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