Obama visits his grandmother in Hawaii

Taking a couple of days off from campaigning, Obama flew to Hawaii to visit his gravely ill grandmother who still lives in the apartment that Obama shared with his grandparents as a teenager. From the New York Times:

Thursday night’s visit to Mrs. Dunham, who will turn 86 on Sunday, lasted a little more than an hour. Mr. Obama then returned on Friday to her 10th-floor apartment, where he lived from the age of 10. Also present was his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who lives in Hawaii. The apartment was flooded with flowers and good wishes from strangers who wrote that they had come to know her from his first book, “Dreams From My Father.”

As a light morning mist fell, the sandal-clad senator took a brief walk around his old neighborhood, a pair of sunglasses covering his eyes.

Family friends in Hawaii say Mrs. Dunham is suffering from cancer, among other ailments, but Obama advisers, told by the senator not to release any details of her condition, declined to confirm or deny those reports. She is known, however, to suffer from osteoporosis and poor eyesight.

“One of the things I wanted to make sure of is that I had a chance to sit down with her and talk to her,” Mr. Obama said Friday on the ABC News television program “Good Morning America.” “She’s still alert and she’s still got all her faculties, and I want to make sure that — that I don’t miss that opportunity right now.”

“She is getting a sense of long-deserved recognition at — towards the end of her life,” he added.

(Video link)