girls that I loved them and that things would be okay. I kept trying to tell myself the same thing.
In the end, Hillary Clinton won nearly three million more votes than her opponent, but Trump had captured the Electoral College thanks to fewer than eighty thousand votes spread across Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I am not a political person, so I’m not going to attempt to offer an analysis of the results. I won’t try to speculate about who was responsible or what was unfair. I just wish more people had turned out to vote. And I will always wonder about what led so many women, in particular, to reject an exceptionally qualified female candidate and instead choose a misogynist as their president. But the result was now ours to live with.
Barack had stayed up most of the night tracking the data, and as had happened so many times before, he was called upon to step forward as a symbol of steadiness to help the nation process its shock. I didn’t envy him the task. He gave a morning pep talk to his staff in the Oval Office and then, around noon, delivered a set of sober but reassuring remarks to the nation from the Rose Garden, calling—as he always did—for unity and dignity, asking Americans to respect one another as well as the institutions built by our democracy.
That afternoon, I sat in my East Wing office with my entire staff, all of us crammed into the room on couches and desk chairs that had been pulled in from other rooms. My team was made up largely of women and minorities, including several who came from immigrant families. Many were in tears, feeling that their every vulnerability was now exposed. They’d poured themselves into their jobs because they believed thoroughly in the causes they were furthering. I tried to tell them at every turn that they should be proud of who they are, that their work mattered, and that one election couldn’t wipe away eight years of change.
Everything was not lost. This was the message we needed to carry forward. It’s what I truly believed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was our reality—the world as it is. We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress.
* * *
We were at the end now, truly. I found myself caught between looking back and looking forward, mulling over one question in particular: What lasts?
We were the forty-fourth First Family and only the eleventh family to spend two full terms in the White House. We were, and would always be, the first black one. I hoped that when future parents brought their children to visit, the way I’d brought Malia and Sasha when their father was a senator, they’d be able to point out some reminder of our family’s time here. I thought it was important to register our presence within the larger history of the place.
Not every president commissioned an official china setting, for instance, but I made sure we did. During Barack’s second term, we also chose to redecorate the Old Family Dining Room, situated just off the State Dining Room, freshening it up with a modern look and opening it to the public for the first time. On the room’s north wall, we’d hung a stunning yellow, red, and blue abstract painting by Alma Thomas—Resurrection—which became the first work of art by a black woman to be added to the White House’s permanent collection.
The most enduring mark, however, lay outside the walls. The garden had persisted through seven and a half years now, producing roughly two thousand pounds of food annually. It had survived heavy snows, sheets of rain, and damaging hail. When high winds had toppled the forty-two-foot-high National Christmas Tree a few years earlier, the garden had survived intact. Before I left the White House, I wanted to give it even more permanence. We expanded its footprint to twenty-eight hundred square feet, more than double its original size. We added stone pathways and wooden benches, plus a welcoming arbor made of wood sourced from the estates of Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe and the childhood home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And then, one fall afternoon, I set out across the South Lawn to officially dedicate the garden for posterity.
Joining me that day were supporters and advocates who’d helped with our nutrition and childhood health efforts over the years,