Obama's grandmother dies at 86

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Sen. Barack Obama called the last day of his presidential race "bittersweet." He carried himself with the confidence of a candidate who sensed victory -- and learned that the woman who helped raise him wouldn't get to see the outcome.

The Democratic presidential nominee began Monday in a Florida hotel room, where he got word that his grandmother Madelyn Payne Dunham, 86, had died at the apartment in Honolulu where he lived with her as a child. She died late Sunday night after a battle with cancer, the campaign said.

Obama went ahead with his campaign plans, grieving privately for several hours before breaking into tears in front of 25,000 people gathered in the rain for a rally at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.

"She's gone home," Obama said as tears ran down both cheeks. "And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side. And so there is great joy as well as tears. I'm not going to talk about it too long because it is hard for me to talk about."

But he said he wanted people to know a little about her -- that she lived through the Great Depression and World War II, working the latter on a bomber assembly line with a baby at home and a husband serving his country. He said she was humble and plainspoken, one of the "quiet heroes that we have all across America" working hard and hoping to see their children and grandchildren thrive.

Obama interrupted his campaign last month to visit her as her life neared its end. "Toot," as he called her in an abbreviated version the Hawaiian word for grandmother, tutu, raised a young Obama for several years in Hawaii while his mother lived in Indonesia.