Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

Oprah’s Inspirational Finale

After 25 years, the talk show queen leaves us with a lot to chew on.

I dozed off for a minute this afternoon and had a terrible dream: Oprah was leaving the building and she wasn't coming back.

Wait, that wasn't a dream? How are we supposed to live without our life coach, role model, tutor and best friend?

I hope at least Oprah is going to set up toll-free support lines, for when the bad tapes start playing in my head again.

Her departure has already sparked my abandonment issues big time. I feel like eating a whole pan of brownies.

I don't know about you, but I'm a complete mess without my spiritual spa in the afternoon, my oasis of graces.

But at least we got one final high mass with the zaftig Zen priestess.

It was a New Age tent revival with Dale Carnegie wall-hangings.

"You alone are enough," she assured us.

She counseled us to enjoy the ride. "We often block our own blessings because we don't feel inherently good enough, or smart enough or pretty enough or worthy enough."

She exhorted us to accept and pursue our destinies, "You are exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing.

"Start embracing that life that is calling you and use that life to serve the world."

And she did it all with a a degree of humility. "Sometimes I was the teacher; more often it was I who learned from you."

She laughed at herself, flashing images of hair and clothes choices through the years that seemed like a good idea at the time.

As at any other retirement party, she couldn't help bragging a little. "I never missed a day in 25 years."

Surprisingly she only cried once, 51 minutes into the broadcast, as she evoked "the lonely little girl" who is her inner child.

She also let us in on the secrets of her success: "My staff. And Jesus."

The final show was remarkably steeped in religion, both symbolically and rhetorically.

"I have felt the presence of God my whole life," she said solemnly.

The hour went by quickly, the commercial breaks coming at shorter and shorter intervals. And then it was time for the final words, drawn, intentionally or not, from another beloved frontierswoman, Dale Evans: "I won't say goodbye. I'll just say 'until we meet again'. To God be the glory."

Read more Dave on Demand or follow him on Twitter @DaveOnDemand_TV