Barack Obama admits to tearful goodbye with daughter Malia
Former president Barack Obama revealed that he had a tearful goodbye when dropping off his eldest daughter Malia Obama at college.
"It was a little bit like open heart surgery," Mr. Obama said during a Beau Biden Foundation reception in Delaware. "And I was proud that I did not cry in front of her, but on the way back, the Secret Service was off, looking straight ahead, pretending they weren't hearing me as I sniffled and blew my nose. It was rough."
Malia Obama, 19, started school at Harvard University in August after graduating from Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. and a preceding gap year, which she spent traveling and interning with the Weinstein Company film studio.
The former president said the experience made him sentimental.
"And it's a reminder that at the end of our lives, whatever else we've accomplished, the things of it we'll remember are the joys that our children and hopefully, way later, our grandchildren bring us," he said, according to a video shared by WDEL radio. "Holding their hand, swinging them on a swing, listening to them talk about what had happened at school. You know, simple stuff, but ultimately that's what matters. That's what you're going to care about."
Last year, Mr. Obama said that he's proud of his daughter, but he would "miss her terribly" when she's gone.
"For those of us who have daughters, it just happens fast," Mr. Obama said.
