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*Photo courtesy of the Oprah empire!

We all have moments in our life that are burned into our memories.  I bet most of you can answer all these questions:

Where were you when JFK was shot?

Where were you when the space shuttle Challenger exploded?

Where were you when OJ Simpson was being chased down the Interstate 405?

Where were you when the news broke about the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles?

Where were you when Princess Diana died?

Where were you heard about the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001?

The list could go on and on, but today, I want to ask;

Where were you when Oprah Winfrey aired her last show after 25 years on the air?

I could not watch the broadcast at its normal 3 pm air time, so I snuggled on the couch two hours later with tissues in hand.

I will be honest and say that I expected every single one of the 300+ audience members to walk away with a million dollars. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it would just be her and her millions of viewers around the world.

Her words penetrated my heart bringing tears to my eyes multiple times.

I sat in silence for a few moments after the show ended, the silence only being broken by the cheers of my son whooping and hollering that he never had to listen to Oprah again.

During the show, Oprah looked directly into the camera; an email posted at the bottom of the screen, she said, “This is my new email address. This is my personal email address. I want to stay connected to you. I want to hear from you. I will be reading as many of your emails as possible. If you get an email from this address it is coming directly from me.”

“Wow”, I thought to myself. “That is impressive, but I am sure she will receive millions of emails. There is no way she will be able to read them all, let alone respond.”

I did not think much more about it, but then, a couple of days later, I felt compelled to email her.  I don’t know why. The thought just popped into my head. As Oprah said during her last show, these are whispers. These are signs. LISTEN and RESPOND.  So I did.

I sent a very short email congratulating Oprah on her last show. I explained that I had been a viewer off and on since the beginning.  I went on to say that there were two shows that impacted my life the most.

The first, a show titled “Wives confess they are gay”, which aired in November 2007. I was not watching Oprah on a regular basis at that time. It was a friend that alerted me to watch that day. At the time, I was knee-deep in my relationship with The Lobster. The show exposed me to a scenario that I thought I was the only one living. It was that show which pushed me to read more, find more information, and to    learn about other stories like mine.  If not for this show, I would have never begun to question the Lobster, I would have never thought there was a possibility of me living openly gay in a happy relationship, and I would have continued on ignorantly dating a married woman.

The second show that impacted me so greatly was the last show.  There were so many powerful statements. These are a few of my favorites.

“Nobody but you is responsible for your life. You are responsible for your life. What is your life? What is all life? What is every flower, every rock, every tree? Energy. And you’re responsible for the energy you create for yourself, and you’re responsible for the energy that you bring to others.”

“There’s a difference between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing that you are worthy of being happy. Your being alive makes worthiness your birthright. You alone are enough.”

“I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common — they all wanted validation. … They want to know, do you hear me? Do you see me? Does what I say mean anything to you?”

I did not want to drown Oprah with one of my lengthy stories. Believe me, my email was no more than 50 words.

I signed off by simply saying “Thank you”.

I never expected her to read it. I never expected a return email.

The next day, to my surprise, there was an email in my inbox from Oprah Winfrey. I thought, “GET OUT”.

I opened the email to find a very generic thank you and lengthy ramble about the OWN network. Okay, I can accept this, I mean really, this is Oprah “Freakin” Winfrey.  No big deal.

The next day, another email from Oprah, maybe this one is not an auto-reply.  Nope, but guess what, after her vacation, Oprah is going to be hard at work on the OWN network.

Now, I am a little irritated. I would have rather not received anything from Oprah leaving the illusion in my mind that maybe one day while sitting on her porch in Santa Barbara she would see my email.

Today, I received another email from Oprah. Guess what? She is on vacation eating White Truffle pizza but she wanted to remind me to watch a new documentary that will be airing on the OWN network tomorrow night.

GEEZ OPRAH!  I thought we were going to be friends but you only seem to want me for my viewership of the OWN network.

Oprah, I don’t want to be your friend anymore. I decided a long time ago to expel the users from my life. I think you are using me.

Hrrumph!

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