FILE – In this May 13, 2007, file photo, then-Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., talks to reporters after appearing on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ with his mother, Roberta McCain, left, at the NBC studios in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) – John McCain’s rebellious streak didn’t come out of nowhere. His mother, Roberta, had a habit of speeding behind the wheel and racking up tickets. When told during a trip to Europe that she was too old to rent a car, she went out and bought a Peugeot. Her son once answered the telephone to hear his mother say she was on a cross-country driving trip – by herself, in her 90s.
Now 106, the wife of a Navy admiral and mother of a Navy captain lived a life full of travel and adventure, punctuated by her sass and determination.
She once said her son liked to hold her up as an example of “what he hopes his lifespan will be.”
But in the end, she is mourning him instead of the other way around.
Though slowed by a stroke, she is expected to attend memorial and burial services in Washington and Maryland later this week for the middle son she called “Johnny,” the Vietnam prisoner of war, congressman, senator and two-time presidential candidate who died of brain cancer on Saturday at age 81.