Michelle Obama was able to introduce her father, Fraser Robinson III, to her future husband, as they began dating in 1989 when he was still with her. In 2018, Michelle Obama published her memoir, "Becoming," and wrote that he didn't think her new relationship would last because none of her others had. She also spoke of what it felt like when she lost her dad.
"It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does," she wrote. "It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth...You look at something you'd otherwise find beautiful – a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids – and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way." (via Express)
Obama also told the graduating class of Chicago's King College Prep High School about her father when she gave their commencement address in 2015.
"As for my Dad, he worked as a pump operator at the city water plant," she said. "And even after he was diagnosed with MS in his thirties, and it became harder for him to walk and get dressed, he still managed to pull himself out of bed every morning...I watched my father struggle on crutches to slowly make his way across our apartment, out the door to work, without complaint or self-pity or regret." (via TIME)
