Obama's sister 'wept tears of joy' over his win, says Hawaii e-mail

[dkf]

n e-mail, Obama's sister describes feelings after grandma's death, election


By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Maya Soetoro-Ng could have accepted her brother's invitation to be at his side on Election Night in Chicago. But Barack Obama's sister knew where she belonged.
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As she had for much of the past eight years, Soetoro-Ng stayed in the two-bedroom apartment on Beretania Street where she had taken care of their maternal grandmother, Madelyn Dunham.

Dunham had died of cancer just two nights before at the age of 86, with Soetoro-Ng at her side. Then, on the day that Obama was elected as America's first black president, Dunham's koa urn arrived and Soetoro-Ng surrounded it with pictures of Dunham's late daughter, Stanley Ann Dunham, Dunham's grandchildren and her great-grandchildren, "all of us who benefited so much from her steady voice and hand," Soetoro-Ng wrote.

Soetoro-Ng returned to her teaching job on Monday at La Pietra — Hawai'i School for Girls but has not spoken to the media since the death of their grandmother and her brother's Election Day electoral college landslide.

But in a post-election e-mail sent to friends last week, Soetoro-Ng wrote of the whirlpool of emotions surrounding both her grandmother's death and her brother's success — and of the need to then unplug for a while with her husband, Konrad, and their 4-year-old daughter, Suhaila, on O'ahu's North Shore.

(She told a friend that he could give a copy of the e-mail to The Advertiser.)

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081112/NEWS01/811120368/1001

[MoJoWorkin]

1. Grace and intelligence run in the family. Maya has had to "handle" a lot--

as has her brother.


They are made of strong stuff.

[PCIntern]

2. Oh-noes! She's 'over-emotional'!

she has severe problems...we wonder if Barack has the same problems!!! What have we done!? We're doomed...DOOMED I tell you!!!

:sarcasm: of course...

[riverwalker]

3. a remarkable family

in a interview once, Maya said their mother Stanley would wake them up sometimes to go out and look at the moon in wonder if it was particularly beautiful. She inspired her children with awareness of the moment.
That reminded me of that poem about if the stars only appeared once every hundred years we would all ooohhh and ahhh, but since it is every night, we hardly look at them.

[wndycty]

4. The most touching passage in her e-mail was:

"I contemplated accepting B's offer to bring over to Chicago for election night, but I was too tired to grieve in front of millions and opted instead to watch the electoral votes accumulate in the apt where BArack spent his high school years with our grandparents. Our Tutu's koa urn was leiver on election day, and around it we place pictures. . ."

She watched the world celebrate her brothers victory in the apartment he grew up in with his grandmothers urn. . .man that is touching.

[Patiod]

5. I wondered where she was

Would have made a neat picture - One single family, with black, white and asian family members, all onstage.

But you have to do what you have to do, and the combination of grief and elation would be a lot to handle

Hope she'll make the inauguration

[gblady]

6. I'm glad...

she's taking care of herself, surrounding herself with family and friends.

[soccermomforobama]

7. His sister seems like a great person.

I know people have also been asking about the funeral for his grandmother. This article seems to reveal that she has been cremated. I am glad that they got to handle her remains in a private way. I know there was talk about some church potentially protesting her funeral.