Obama Takes 2 Days Off to See Ailing Grandmother

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 21, 2008 — -- Barack Obama is canceling campaign events scheduled for Thursday in Madison, Wis., and Des Moines, Iowa, and flying to Hawaii because his grandmother Madelyn Dunham, 85, has taken ill, his campaign has announced.

On Sunday evening, the Illinois senator spoke to his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who is visiting their grandmother in Hawaii. After that call, Obama decided to visit the woman who helped raise him.

During a flight from Orlando to West Palm Beach, Fla., Monday evening, senior campaign adviser Robert Gibbs told reporters that the grandmother's health had taken a turn for the worse, requiring Obama to leave the campaign trail for two days. He will return from Hawaii late Friday evening or early Saturday morning.

"Sen. Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has always been one of the most important people in his life, along with his mother and grandfather," Gibbs said, reading a statement. "She raised him in Hawaii from the time he was born until the moment he left for college. As he said at the Democratic convention, she poured everything she had into him. Recently his grandmother has become ill and in the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious. It is for that reason that Sen. Obama has decided to change his schedule on Thursday and Friday so that he can see her and spend some time with her. He will be returning to the campaign trail on Saturday."

Gibbs later told "Good Morning America" today that Obama's strategists know the detour "comes at a cost on the campaign trail, but Sen. Obama believes his family comes first."

"She has meant the world to Barack Obama. She has poured everything she had into raising him and making him into the person that he is today," Gibbs told "GMA." "He just feels it's tremendously important that he get down there and spend time with her, as she's very sick."

The campaign of Sen. John McCain, his Republican rival, expressed sympathy for Obama.

"It's easy to forget that these are families running for president," McCain spokeswoman Nicole Wallace told "GMA." "Everyone's thoughts and prayers are with them. Certainly, Sen. McCain has Sen. Obama and his grandmother in his thoughts."

A new Thursday morning event in Indianapolis, Ind., has been added, after which Obama will fly to Honolulu. He is scheduled to arrive in the 50th state late Thursday. He will spend much of Friday with his grandmother in her apartment in Oahu, the same apartment building where a young Obama lived while attending high school nearby.

Gibbs would not provide details about Dunham's illness except to say that, with approximately two weeks to go until Election Day, "the decision that Sen. Obama is going to Hawaii, I think, underscores the seriousness of the situation."