Death is inevitable, and Michelle Obama said that her mother, Marian Robinson, started psyching her mind to be able to move on in life without her when she was as young as 10 years old.
The former first lady also said she’s doing the same thing with the two daughters (Malia, 27, and Sasha, 24) she shares with her husband and former U.S. President, Barack Obama.
Michelle, 61, touched on what her mother told her before she died during a November 5 discussion with La La Anthony about her new book, The Look, at People Inc.’s exclusive in-person event, PEOPLE reported.
The sexagenarian, on a lighter note, recalled that when she was as young as 10 years old, her mother was already making her and her brother Craig Robinson understand that she wasn’t going to be around forever.
“What she was doing was letting us know that she loved us, but that we could live life with and without her, and I understand that now as a parent,” Michelle said about her mother, who passed away in 2024 at the age of 86.
She added: “I want my daughters to know, ‘I love you, you love me, but you don’t need me. You know everything you need to know to be successful.’”
Michelle took care of her mother and was usually with her when she fell sick and was close to kicking the bucket. She recalled a day when she was watching TV with her mother, Marian, and Marian told her, “Wow, that was quick.”
Michelle stated that when she asked her mother to expatiate on what she meant, Marian’s response was, “Life.”
“That’s all she said, but what I got from that was even in her practical-minded way, that you’re never ready. And I don’t think that she was done living. It just comes, and then life is over,” Michelle said. “I was like, ‘Let me hear that. Let me understand that, that even with a wonderful life, I want to be present.'”
Michelle also touched on being a sexagenarian, telling Anthony: “I think that feeling of 60 is about trying to be present in the feeling. Trying to be present in this moment in my life so that this last chapter is exactly the way I want it to be.”
Michelle also touched on a photo that her husband Obama took of her to celebrate her 60th birthday. She was wearing a yellow dress and was on a trip to Greece at the time, PEOPLE reported.
“There’s how you look, but it’s how you feel,” she said. “My feeling in that photo was free, completely free to be me.”
Michelle said she has now gotten to a point where “women have to earn because of all that we carry.” “I realized how much breath-holding and decision making I was doing to ensure my girls would turn out whole,” she added.
“This is the first time in my life where every single decision I make is mine. It’s what I want to do. … What do I want, what do I feel? This is the first time that I’ve been able to do that for me, no excuses. That means that the consequences are mine, too, and there’s a freedom with that,” she said about being in her sixties.
“If I’m lucky, I live to 90 and that’s 30 good summers,” she also said, adding that she’s now “mindful” of the way she lives the remainder of her life.
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