The Woman Behind the Man

On this Mother's Day I'm going to provide a bit of a twist and share the story of someone else's mother. And even if you are not on the same political wavelength, the story of Barack Obama's mother is a fascinating one:

She was born and raised at the tail end of WWII, in an era rife with conventionality and mainstream ideals. She was raised in much the same way as any other young caucasion girl, with two parents, a stay-at-home mom of her own, in a nice neighborhood. Her father did have a habit, though, of uprooting his family with little notice, finally moving them to Honolulu, Hawaii. Mostly though, her upbringing was the stuff of fifties television. The woman she became was anything but conventional. One hint of anomoly in her life was in her name: Stanley Ann Dunham. When she was young and had to introduce herself she would always apologize for the oddity of it until eventually she dropped "Stanley" for good and became simply Ann.

It was around 1959 that she graduated from high school and became a freshman at the University of Hawaii. It was there that she met a black man from Kenya, Obama Sr. They courted and married in a whirlwind that shocked everyone who knew her. She had always been so focused on academics, the marriage itself was more the surprise to those who knew her than her choice of mate. In the late '50s and early '60s, though, interracial marriage was rare, although not as unheard-of in the rich culture of Hawaii.

Barack was born on August 4, 1961. Not long after his birth, the father returned to Kenya to work for his home country, always with the idea of bringing his young family to the country when he was "more settled," but that never happened. A few years later, Ann filed for divorce and was officially the single mother of a little black boy. With the help of her parents who loved their grandson dearly, she returned to school, and once again during her studies in anthropology she met a man, this time an Indonesian who she eventually married, and with whom she had Barack's younger sister.

By this time it was obvious that Stanley Ann Dunham was no "average" woman of her generation. Twice she spit in the face of convention and married outside her race and her culture. Upon completing her anthropology degree, she and her children follwed Barack's stepfather to Indonesia, a move she embraced with enthusiasm. Living in Indonesia gave root to Ann's burgeoning social consience, and she became an advocate for the poverty-stricken and for women in general. Her work and passion for these causes never interfered with her dedication to parenting; while he lived in Indonesia, Barack's mother would awaken him daily at 4 am so he could take a correspondence course in English, a subject not offered in Jakarta for obvious reasons. She worked to grow the social awareness of both her children, using their surroundings as a learning tool. She also, in an effort to keep Barack plugged into his own heritage, gave him books, read to him, and discussed with him the heritage of black America and Kenya. She never wanted him to be less than proud of who he was and encouraged him to embrace all the pieces of himself as openly as she always did.

Barack still spent time in Hawaii with his grandparents; when he started high school he asked his mother to allow him to stay with them and attend an American school. She agreed, although she communicated often to friends that it was the hardest decision she'd ever had to make. They spoke on the phone often, wrote many letters, and Ann's friends and coworkers still remember the pride with which she would talk about her son. By leaving him in Hawaii to further his education academically, Barack's mother put his interests before her own, which is, of course, what any good mother would do.

Unfortunately Ann and her Indonesian husband grew apart and divorced, but she never lost her heart for the country and its people. She never, to the end of her life, lost her passion and enthusiasm for the diversity of humanity. "She did her best to find beauty and kinship in unexpected places," commented her daughter Maya. She was not a personally ambitious woman, she didn't seek to "rule the world," but she was a "big thinker," asserts a friend, "the kind who saw a world without ethnic boundries."

When Ann was in her early fifties she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer; she died at 53, an age far too young for the world to be deprived of her greater view. But she left behind Maya, who is an anthropologist herself, and Barack, who of course took the lessons he learned from her words and her actions-by the way she lived her life-and has applied them with glaring success. I think Ann would be fine with his bid for the Presidency, even proud, but mostly she'd want her son to remember what she considered to be her own life's mantra. She believed a life can only be measured by one's level of service to others, that working towards the greater good is the only true measure of a life well lived.

I want the son of this mother for my President.