Finding a path of growth through your grief, By Oprah Winfrey

My father, Vernon Winfrey, has been the bridge over troubled water for me since the beginning of my life. He gladly played the same role for many of those who attended his homegoing celebration in Nashville this past Thursday, and for many more who could not be with us. The influence of his strength, compassion, and wisdom on the entire community was highlighted throughout the day.

Mayor John Cooper and Chief of Police John Drake came to pay their respects to my father, who was a longtime businessman and community leader. He owned and cut hair at his barbershop for more than 50 years, served as Councilman for the 5th district, and was a Tennessee State University trustee. Stedman, who has been my rock through this whole process, and Gayle were by my side. Gospel singers BeBe & CeCe Winans performed “I Surrender All,” and Tamela Mann sang “Take Me to the King.” Later, the funeral procession made a stop at the barbershop on the way to the military cemetery where my father, a Korean War veteran, was buried.

During the service, friends and family members, including Tyler Perry, and acquaintances of my father spoke so poignantly about the sorrow they were feeling at his loss. I was moved to assure them that though Vernon Winfrey’s physical presence is no longer with us, his guiding light remains.

Sitting with my father as he took his last breaths, I was reminded that death is also a gift to the living. All the goodness your loved one possessed is now yours to take in and pass on. It offers renewed purpose and direction, a path of growth through your grief.

This message is so important for anyone struggling with grief, as so many of us are as we barrel toward our third year of the pandemic, that I wanted to share it with you instead of my normal Sunday video.

As you read about the impact my father had on every life he touched, think about the lost loved ones who most impacted your life and how you will help continue their legacy by living according to their example. I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

The Bible says, “Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long, Deuteronomy 5:16.” That’s one of the first Bible verses I remember my father teaching and reiterating to me, and one I’ve tried to uphold my whole life.

My father has been the bridge over troubled water for me since the beginning of my life. Had he not stepped up and taken responsibility for being my father after his and my mother’s one-time encounter under an oak tree, I would not be who I am. I doubt that I would be alive. But that’s the kind of man he was. He took responsibility. He stood for what was right. He lived with integrity.

I speak today on behalf of Tommy Walker and myself. My father and stepmother Zelma invited Tommy into their home on Arrington when he was 11 and had been left to fend for himself alone in a house on North 5th Street, right around the corner from the barbershop. He took over my room as I had just moved out to work for Channel 5. They unofficially adopted him as their son.

Tommy said he didn’t want to speak today, speaking wasn’t his thing. He did speak 10 days ago when we had our backyard “Vernon Winfrey Appreciation Day” celebration, and shared the story of going into the Army, being surrounded by men of high-ranking—colonels and generals—but how no man ranked higher in integrity and esteem than Vernon Winfrey. Quite frankly Tommy, you don’t have to speak another word. You don’t have to defend or justify or offer any explanation, because you have lived your love for him.

I have been a good daughter, but you my brother have been an exceptional son. As we stood around his bedside trying to calm him from his first seizure last Wednesday, as the neuroendocrine stage 4 cancer was ravaging his body, I saw him take your hand and look you directly in the eye, and he held the look. He didn’t speak a word. I don’t know if he couldn’t speak or if there just weren’t the words. But the look said everything. It said, “I trust you. I thank you. I’m proud of you. I’m grateful for everything you’ve ever done and are doing. You’ve been by my side.” It said, “I can feel the end is near. You’ve gone the last mile of the way with me, and you’re still here.” The look spoke volumes of pure love. It said, “You have been an exceptional son.”

His words to me sitting out on the porch the week before Father’s Day—waving at everybody, calling them over, when we still thought we had months, not days—were that “Darlene and Tommy have been jewels among jewels.” Well done to both of you. I am grateful and so happy that he had you and Darlene, Vicki, Veronica, Sierra, and Tommy as a bonded, caring family in his life every single day. You all helped him live a life filled with love. There is no better offering, no better reward than knowing he felt loved.

Respect, character, honor, doing the right thing no matter who is looking—these are the foundational values we learned from my father. Also keeping the peace: I don’t ever remember seeing him angry, and never in life yell at anyone.

He showed Tommy that the measure of a man was being able to take care of his family and see that his children prosper and bring honor to the family name. He taught me that the measure of a woman was to be able to wear respect as your primary garment, as your foundation. He used to lecture us a lot about everything: duty, responsibility, church attendance. He laid the foundation for solid values in a world that once understood the difference between right and wrong.

He didn’t just lecture but lived by example. “What you do for the least of these my brethren, Matthew 25:40,” was another one of his favorite Bible verses and teachings. He was always helping whoever he could. Helping somebody with their rent, their light bill, getting someone’s son out of jail, bailing people out of bad situations.

As a young girl, it was exhausting for me. Why do we have to be the ones to help everybody? Do you have to speak to everybody and shake every single hand? Why do we have to be the last people to leave the parking lot at church? I can still hear the gravel under the wheels of that Buick Electra Duece and a Quarter pulling out of the Faith United Baptist Church parking lot.

Why, at Christmastime, did our yellow formica kitchen table have to be covered with watches and clocks and radios and toasters and all kinds of trinkets that people had let my father hold in exchange for a few dollars?

And if it was cold and he had no place to go, Fox, one of the regular highly-inebriated visitors to the barbershop, would be sleeping on our kitchen floor. My stepmother Zelma did not like that, nor did I, ‘cause Fox‘s wino smells would permeate the whole house. Why does our house have to be the house the drunks come to stay warm? “Oprah Gail, don’t call people drunks,” he’d say.

It wasn’t until years later, doing The Oprah Winfrey Show, that I realized my empathy and compassion for people trying to get on their feet came from watching my father live his empathy and compassion. Never something he talked about, he just did it.

Louis on Facebook left this message:

“I remember Mr. Winfrey as the man that would offer me groceries on loan because sometimes, I’d show up at his corner grocery store with not enough change. He would say, ‘Take the food, Little Louis, and bring back the money when you can.’ I remember when Mr. Winfrey would cut my hair as a kid, and it would take what appeared 2 days because he loved to give advice to Little Louis. He would get lost in dropping nuggets of wisdom and cut slower and slower.

I remember Mr. Winfrey as a man that supported my dreams and the dreams of many in our neighborhood. I remember when I won the State Championship in acting in high school and qualified for the nationals in forensics, but the school nor my parents could afford to send me. We decided we would host a block party on Rosedale Court and allow our neighbors to witness me perform my winning speech and pass the hat to raise the money. Mr. Winfrey was our councilman and supported this important effort. I’ll never forget what it felt like to be supported by him. It was as if our councilman saw something in me and endorsed my efforts.

Later in life, Mr. Winfrey and I would become neighbors again but in a totally different neighborhood. Oprah had blessed him with this beautiful home. To Mr. Winfrey, I was still Little Louis. He would pass our home on a daily basis and stop often, offering my family fresh vegetables from the back of his truck. He wanted to make sure my family had enough food to eat. Mind you, we’re now living in a gated community.

Sometimes he would just stop and ring the doorbell and offer vegetables to my wife. He was always a childhood hero to me and many others from East Nashville. Eventually, the world would know him as Oprah’s dad but everything you see in Oprah as a giver was modeled for me by Mr. Winfrey his entire life. When he had very little, and when he had a lot, he shared. He was a giver, a leader, a friend, a barber, a one of one.”

Thank you Louis, for your affirming testimony.

The greatest honor you can bring to your parents is by living an honorable life. That was so important to him. What people said and thought of the Winfrey name was important to him. This was passed on from his father, my grandfather Elmore, and exemplified still by his living siblings Aunt Marvie, Aunt Kate, and Aunt Christine, all women of great character and integrity.

Another woman of great character, Maya Angelou, shared this with me about legacy: Your legacy is never one thing, it’s every life you’ve touched. My father touched a lot of lives from that barbershop. It was his pulpit, his kingdom. What an extraordinary accomplishment to be a successful Black businessman for 58 years, starting out in a Jim Crow Nashville. But his reach and touch went far beyond the corner of Lischey and Vernon Winfrey Street, named after him decades ago.

Tommy, Darlene, me, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews—Veronica, Sierra, Vicky, Young Tommy—Little Louis, and countless others, many of you who’ve come to pay your respects today, are a part of that legacy. He touched you. He moved you. He loaned you a few dollars, which you now don’t have to pay back. Helped you. Inspired you to do better and be better.

And be better we must, because that’s what life and death compel us to do. Death is a great teacher. I learned a lot just sitting in the room, watching life seep from my father’s body. Breathing with him to measure his level of distress. 32 breaths a minute… 24 breaths a minute… and finally 9 breaths. What was reaffirmed for me more emphatically than ever was that every breath is precious. Death is here to remind us our days are numbered.

The moment Tommy Facetimed me from the emergency room, I could hear my father telling the doctors, “I want to make it to 90.” The reason their approach was aggressive chemo is because he ordered them to help him make it to 90. Tommy and I didn’t want that, but he insisted. And that first round of chemo was a knockout punch. As Tommy was explaining to him in hospital, “You just got hit by Muhammad Ali. You’re on the ropes, brotha. You’re trying to stand back up. You can’t handle another punch.” It was Tommy’s boxing analogy that got him to release the chemo.

After the appreciation celebration last week, when we were helping him back to bed, he said to me, “Did you ever think I wouldn’t make it to 90?”

I said, “Dad, I don’t think God’s operating from a number in your head. Look at all the people who didn’t make it to 17 and 44 and 72 and 28. They had numbers they wanted to reach. But it’s not about the number—it’s about the service. Have you served your purpose? Have you done what you came to do? I believe when you’re done, you exit. It’s not about making a number.”

I could feel him taking that in, and he softly responded, “Well, that’s another way to look at it.”

His body is gone. But this I know for sure and have witnessed time and again: When someone who’s loved you in the flesh dies, stay open to embrace the Spirit. You get an angel you can call by name. And family, we have a mighty powerful one in Vernon Winfrey. Grieve, if you must, the loss of his physical body and presence that you could touch and hug. But rejoice, you hear me? Rejoice that he lived, and his love now lives in you, in ways the dense flesh could not allow.

Stay open to his light. Stay open to his kindness, stay open to his dignity. Stay open to his grace. Don’t close to sadness. Let his spirit infuse you, cover you, abide with you, enhance you and allow you to come on up to the rising of your life.

I saw this when Maya’s mother died, when Stedman’s father died, when Tyler’s mother died—opportunity after opportunity showed itself. Why? Because their angels were working it from the other side. Something happens when you stay open to receiving the blessings of your loved one’s life. You get fortified. You get renewed to your purpose, your reason for being here. You get focused on the work you have left to do and know that you have an angel guide working from the other side.

He’s joined the family of ancestors responsible for all the sisters, brothers, sons, cousins, nieces, and nephews here today.

We have to carry on his legacy with every life we touch.

Source: www.oprahdaily.com