Oprah’s advice on saying goodbye to a loved one gives us the feels
Oprah Winfrey takes everything that happens, even something tragic, as a learning experience.
Even when it comes to her own mothers passing.
She is a successful businesswoman who came from a poor rural American upbringing to build her own brand.
So she's definitely someone we would be happy to take advice from.
Her mother, Vernita Lee, died a month ago and Oprah is opening up about how she is dealing with it.
She told People, ''I said, ‘I don’t know if you’re going to make it. Do you think you’re going to make it?’ She said, ‘I don’t think I am.’ I had a conversation with her about what that felt like, what it felt like to be near the end.''
She continued, ''I started telling all the people who cared about her that, ‘She knows it’s the end, so, if you want to say goodbye, you should come and say goodbye.’”
Oprah says that saying your goodbyes is an extremely special moment.
She said, ''I said to her, ‘What a wonderful thing to be able to say goodbye,’ because she’s completely coherent and perfectly understanding everything.''
However, the 64-year-old did say that she struggled to find the right words to say to her mother – so she played music instead.
She continued, ''What I said was, ‘Thank you, because I know it’s been hard for you. It was hard for you as a young girl having a baby, in Mississippi. No education. No skills. Seventeen, you get pregnant with this baby. Lots of people would have told you to give that baby away. Lots of people would’ve told you to abort that baby. You didn't do that.''
She added, ''I want you to know that no matter what, I know that you always did the best you knew how to do. I would say to anybody – and if you live long enough, everybody goes through it say the things that you need to say while the people are still alive, so that you are not one of those people living with regret about what you would’ve, should’ve, could’ve said,” she explained.
Words of wisdom, thank you, Oprah.
