Michelle Obama said a brief, final conversation with her late mother, Marian Robinson, shaped how she’s approaching life now and how she’s preparing her daughters, Sasha and Malia to live without her.

Speaking at a People Inc. event in New York City to promote her book, “The Look,” Obama recalled sitting on the couch with her mother not long before her 2024 death. Robinson leaned over and said, “Wow, that was quick.” When the former first lady asked what she meant, her mother said, “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," Obama said. "I was like, 'Let me hear that. Let me understand that, that even with a wonderful life, I want to be present.'"

Obama said that lesson clarified something she’d long suspected: her mother had been gently teaching the family how to cope with loss all along. “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,” Obama said. She added she wants her daughters to carry confidence into adulthood: “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.'” 

At 61, Obama described the decade she’s now in as a time to be intentional. “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,” she told the audience, saying the freedom of owning her choices comes with its own consequences. 

“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.” 

Small, personal rituals matter. Obama said she’s begun “coloring that gray hair,” a habit her mother also kept. "My mother was the same way," Obama said. "My mother dyed her hair until the day she died. She had a beautiful sandy color blonde that mixed in well with the gray. I was like, 'Yeah, I'm going to be doing that too.' "