Say it ain't so Big O!!!

[Sheletta]

I'm glad I made it through the night. I was on suicide watch and my doctors upped my dose of "happy" pills so that I wouldn't do something drastic in the wake of this tragic news! I ain't been this down and out since Michael Jackson died. And before that, it was when the Fat Boys broke up... but now this! My beloved sister Oprah Winfrey has declared that after 25 years on the air, she is saying good bye to day time television.

Today on her Friday Live show, Oprah is supposed to announce that she will no longer be doing her Emmy Award winning day time talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show as of 2011! I tossed and turned all night at the thought of that heart breaking news. How could Big O do this to me? I've been with her since before she had a good hair dresser. From nappy to classy--I was with her every step of the way. From the thin mint Oprah to the double stuffed oreo we see now, I've never left he side. I'm more than a fan, I look at Big O like the Big Sister I never had.

When I needed relationship advice, all I had to do was call her up on the remote control every day at 4 o'clock and she was right there. Home improvements? Not to worry, she had the answer to that too. Self esteem issues? She had the cure. There was never NOTHING in my life that plagued me that my sister Big O didn't have answers for.

I remember one day, I was feeling down and out, I was feeling mighty low (OK, that's the scene she did from The Color Purple) about a relationship I was in. The dude was acting a fool and was just as mean as a two headed rattle snake. I was in my 20s so I thought "Oh if I love him enough he'll change. If I comfort him enough, he will come around. He's just one hug away from his break through." Meanwhile, that bastard was breaking out my car windows and breaking my heart! I used to have to sneak out of the bedroom window of his house just to get away from him. And I don't know what I was sneaking out for, because my stupid ass would just go right back to him a week later (SIDENOTE: I don't know why people say "I'd give anything to be 20 again." That's the most ridiculous statement ever. My 20s were the most horrible time of my life! They were filled with bad boyfriends and bad decisions! You don't really start living until you turn 30!).

But one day, I was at his house, after I had just cleaned it for him, and cooked him something to eat, I was watching Oprah and she was talking about freeing yourself and how to reach your God given potential. She had experts on and people on who were doing exactly what God had designed them to do. And she challenged me, I know she was talking to about 200 million people that day with her broadcast, but she was specifically speaking to ME when she looked at the camera and said "You can do it to!" I felt her spirit, I looked in her eyes and knew that this show on this day and this topic was for me to take in. If I didn't do it, at this moment in my life, it would have never gotten done.

I remember clearly getting up from my seat on the couch feeling like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Now I probably had two weeks worth of clothes at this dude's house not to mention hair care products and underware. I left it all there. I never even wanted it back. Symbolically, cause he wasn't even there, I went into the bedroom and climbed my ass out of that window (I was much more limber then than I am now. Now, it would take the jaws of life to get my fat ass out of any window!). I walked down the street, caught the bus and went home. I didn't even have a car. I mean, I could have waited for him to come back and made a big stink and told him to take me home and explain to him that I had just seen the Oprah show and she was the reason I was dropping his ass... but all that seemed so unnecessary!

When I climbed out that window, I left behind all the verbal abuse, his issues, his baggage and my insecurities. I scaled the side of his house and walked to that bus stop with a renewed sense of who I was and my place in this world. I knew, sitting on that #15 Hirame Clarke metro city bus on that day in Houston Texas going northbound to my little apartment near the Astrodome that Oprah had spoken a word into my life and I was obligated to live my best life ever.

I had dropped out of school, but got back in, finished college, got my degree and two days after graduation had a job in journalism, this after my professor told me to go into PR because the chances were 1 in 10,000 that I'd get a gig in broadcasting.

And my story ain't unique, there are hundreds of thousands of women who have been touched by our Big Sister O's messages of living our best lives and reaching our God given potential.

How could she leave us? What are we supposed to do now? Watch Tyra Banks interview Levi Johnston? I don't think so. Should we check out Wendy Williams and get her advice? Child please! How about we tune in to the Mo'Nique show on BET and listen to her say the word "baby" 200 times during a 30 minute broadcast? I can't stomach it.

If anybody's got Oprah's ear, please tell her not to leave us. Women will be wandering the streets across America aimlessly without guidance or direction for their lives.

[Alexandra]

I know what you mean, but girl you know it's time for the women to take the reign into their own hands, and teach what they've learned to the younger women in their lives. be your own "Oprah"!

Pass it on down the line.

I try to do it for the young ladies in my life

[MargaretC]

We'll turn to the Sheletta Show!!!!
I'll be your sidekick - we've both lived through so much we can help as many woman as O did, and lord knows I could use that kind of money.
Seriously - you should live YOUR best life and get a talk show!!!!!