What I Know for Sure
What I know about love I mostly learned on TV. In 20 years of hosting my show, I've seen what love can do in the most ordinary moments (watching a mother take her child to the first day of school) and the most extraordinary (strangers offering their homes to strangers in the aftermath of Katrina ). Whenever you've been touched by love, a heart-print lingers, so that you're always reminded of the feeling of being cared for, knowing that, to someone, you mattered.
I remember leaving the Houston Astrodome early in the morning eight days after Katrina hit. Most people were still sleeping as we finished taping our show. A young father in a clean white T-shirt was carrying his sleeping 6-year-old daughter over his shoulder, and I stopped to ask, "How ya making out, sir?"
He replied, "I'm gonna make it, 'cause I've already survived Katrina and now I'm just moving on love—and I ain't never felt so much love in my whole life."
"Wow," I said. "You are gonna make it."
Lots of guests over the years have left heart-prints on me. Mattie Stepanek , a child poet whose only goal was to spread peace, was one of the wisest people I've ever met. If angels come to earth, he was definitely one of them. He came to remind us of who we are: love incarnate. When he died at age 13, I made a book of all the e-mails we exchanged. He was love to me.
Erin Kramp was an "ordinary" mother. She discovered she had breast cancer, and while she was fighting to live, she prepared her 6-year-old daughter, Peyton, for life the best way she knew how. She started recording tapes, more than 100 total, about everything she could think of to tell her daughter as she grew up, knowing there wouldn't be enough time to say it all: how to put on makeup, get boys to like you, choose friends, and dress well; stories about herself; her favorite songs, foods, and movies. Her most awesome gift, I thought, was this message: "If God decides to take me to heaven, I'm going to be looking for another soul to bring to Daddy. So I want you to know that I would very much bless Daddy remarrying."
I remember leaving the Houston Astrodome early in the morning eight days after Katrina hit. Most people were still sleeping as we finished taping our show. A young father in a clean white T-shirt was carrying his sleeping 6-year-old daughter over his shoulder, and I stopped to ask, "How ya making out, sir?"
He replied, "I'm gonna make it, 'cause I've already survived Katrina and now I'm just moving on love—and I ain't never felt so much love in my whole life."
"Wow," I said. "You are gonna make it."
Lots of guests over the years have left heart-prints on me. Mattie Stepanek , a child poet whose only goal was to spread peace, was one of the wisest people I've ever met. If angels come to earth, he was definitely one of them. He came to remind us of who we are: love incarnate. When he died at age 13, I made a book of all the e-mails we exchanged. He was love to me.
Erin Kramp was an "ordinary" mother. She discovered she had breast cancer, and while she was fighting to live, she prepared her 6-year-old daughter, Peyton, for life the best way she knew how. She started recording tapes, more than 100 total, about everything she could think of to tell her daughter as she grew up, knowing there wouldn't be enough time to say it all: how to put on makeup, get boys to like you, choose friends, and dress well; stories about herself; her favorite songs, foods, and movies. Her most awesome gift, I thought, was this message: "If God decides to take me to heaven, I'm going to be looking for another soul to bring to Daddy. So I want you to know that I would very much bless Daddy remarrying."
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