Unforgettable

ON the eve of her departure from the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama has never been more inspiring figure -- America's conscience, role model, and mother in cheif.

- Jonathan Van Meter

When I arrive at the White House on a hot afternoon in late September to interview Michelle Obama, the place is so eerily quiet I worry for a second that I have come on the wrong day. I have been here every week for a month, sometimes twice a day, to interview people on the First Lady’s staff or to join Mrs. Obama in her motorcade and head out to an event on her schedule. There is usually so much high-stakes, highly choreographed pageantry unfolding that it’s hard to shake the feeling that if you made a move without permission you might get tackled. Indeed, the day I started following Mrs. Obama, I arrived around ten o’clock and had to “hold” in a reception room for ten minutes; then move to a hallway to hold again; then another spot, hold; until at last I was ushered into the Map Room because the First Lady wanted to say hello before we went off to Howard University. Wearing a purple-and-white striped sleeveless Laura Smalls dress, she enveloped me in one of her customary hugs. “I understand you’re going to be with us for a while.” She paused as a look crossed her face, that ornery one she makes when she’s about to deliver a line: “We’re doin’ a deep dive.”