For those who visit my website MenAlive they are greeted by my welcome video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” Like many people who come to me for help, I had my own challenges with love and marriage. The good news is that I was able to get the help I needed and my third wife, Carlin, and I have been joyfully married for 46 years.
My first wife and I met in college and as our relationship developed, we agreed that when we got married we would have a child and then adopt a child. Our son, Jemal, was born in 1969. We adopted a 2 ½ month old African-American little girl we named Angela in 1972. One of the things I did was to take each of the kids on a father/son and father/daughter retreat when they were teenagers. Another promise I made was that when they turned 21, I would take each of them on a trip to any place they wanted to go to celebrate their coming of age.
My son, Jemal, had become interested in theater and he wanted to go to New York. My daughter, Angela, had a dream of meeting Oprah Winfrey. Jemal’s trip to New York was relatively easy to arrange. Meeting Oprah was much more challenging. It took many months of outreach and searching before I finally struck pay dirt.
I had a friend-of-a-friend who lived in Chicago who thought he knew someone who knew a producer of the Oprah Winfrey’s show. I was able to make a connection and share my daughter’s dream with the producer. I told her about watching Oprah on T.V. when my daughter was a teenager and Angela’s life-long desire to meet the famous talk show host.
It took time, but we were able to get it set up. We arrived in Chicago on Angela’s 21st birthday in 1993. We got a Taxi to the Harpo studies on West Washington Boulevard in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood and got to the studio on time. We were escorted to front row seats and joined the applause when Oprah came out to greet the audience. Oprah smiled and came to say hello to Angela. My daughter was proud to share a little about her own story and her dream of meeting Oprah. It was a day we will both remember our whole lives.
Oprah has continued to be a source of delight in our lives ever since. I thought of Oprah recently while watching one of my favorite podcasters, Mel Robbins, the author of the best-selling book, The Let Them Theory. Oprah recently joined Robbins for an interview titled “How to Find Your Unique Purpose, Authentic Power, and Calling in Life.”
The podcast began with Mel’s cheery welcome.
“Hey, it’s your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast,” then we heard about the guest she had in her Boston studio. “I don’t even know how to explain how I’m feeling right now. I mean, I can’t even believe I can say these words to you. Oprah Winfrey flew to Boston to sit down and have a conversation with me and you.”
For me, it was like going back in time with my daughter and Oprah again. Angela is 54. Mel Robbins is 57. Oprah is 72. I’m 83.
“I thought I would be coming to you,” said Mel to Oprah in her podcast. “I guess the reason why is because I just thought, well, you could go anywhere in the world and talk to anybody. And it never even occurred to me to think about or manifest you coming here.”
“Well, I appreciate the invitation to actually be able to sit in your home space,” said Oprah. “Because this is where you reign. And I have watched you, listened to you, and I watch the bestsellers list regularly. And I am just so rooting for you. I have watched you become the voice of our time in leading people home to themselves. This is why one of the things I hope people get from you and I today, because I see so much of myself in you, Mel.”
“You do?” Says Mel.
“And I am honored by who you have become,” says Oprah, “because I know for sure that some of what I did and what I’ve said over the years, you really got it. And you, to me, are like, on the same mission, in your own voice, in your own way, through your own self-expression. But to me, you are one of those people who took the message of everything that we were trying to say on the show, and you just paid it forward, are moving it forward in your own way. So, it’s like every time I run into someone who says, I watched your show, my mother watched your show, my grandmother watched your show, I watched your show, I was a latchkey kid, it makes me feel like, Oh, you’re a part of it, part of the children I raised.”
The first time I heard about Mel Robbins was when her book came out in 2024. The Let Them Theory, was being talked about everywhere. I saw a copy in the window of my local bookstore and I decided to see what all the hoopla was about. I will admit I was not impressed at first. The introduction seemed like another rags-to-riches story that has become so common in today’s world:
“At the age of 41, I found myself $800,000 in debt, unemployed, and watching my husband’s restaurant business crumble. It felt like we had failed at life with no hope of ever escaping the debt,”
Robbins begins in the Introduction.
But I kept reading and I’m glad I did. Before long, I was making notes in the margin and realizing that Mel Robbins was the real deal. This was long before Mel Robbins fulfilled her own dream to meet Oprah.
Listening to the Mel Robbins share what she has learned from Oprah spoke for me, my daughter, and millions of others who have been guided by Oprah’s wisdom over the years:
“Well, that’s one of the reasons why I was so excited to welcome you here,” said Mel. “For 44 years, I have been your student. You have been my guide and my teacher. And I think that you have served that role for hundreds of millions of people around the world. There are producers on this team whose mothers learned English by watching your show. And your life, and the way you move through the world, is an example of the difference that each and every one of us can make. I would love to have you speak to the person who is here with us watching or listening.”
Oprah’s reply and the rest of the wonderful interview brought tears of joy to my eyes:
“My intention for flying to Boston to be with you, Mel, and to be with you all, is to be used as a light that shines or illuminates in a way that you can see yourself through me, through my stories, through Mel, through her stories, and have that light ignited within yourself.”
“I believe that I’ve had just the most blessed life on Earth. I just can’t get over how blessed I have been in my life. I can’t get over it. I marvel at what God and the life forces have done for me. I marvel at that. But when I think about it now, from the point of view of 72, I realize that what I have acquired is not as magnificent or extraordinary as who I have become. And I know that the world looks at what I have acquired, but it’s who I have become that is truly important. And I recognize that the work to become myself is the same work and ability that everybody has to become the most of themselves. And I am most proud of the woman that I have become. And I want everyone else to have that. I want you to have that.”
We are all the spiritual children of Oprah and I’m so glad I was able to fulfill my daughter’s dream of meeting her.
Thank you Oprah. Thank you Mel. And thank you Angela for being my daughter and having taught me so much about how to live, how to love, and how to share our lives with the world.
If you appreciate articles like these feel free to drop me a note to [email protected]. I enjoy hearing from my readers and I read every one.
If you would like to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter with a new article each week and “news you can use,” you can do so here: https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/
Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by healthlydays.
Publisher: Source link
