In a life filled with amazing leaps, terrifying bounds over obstacles that mere mortals can’t even compre hend, giving up her daily platform is probably the bravest thing Oprah’s ever done.
It’s almost impossible to imagine.
This woman was once a 14-year-old pregnant girl whose child died within hours of being born. And yet, she rose through sheer will to become the richest and most influential woman on TV, and maybe the entire world.
An African-American woman who grew up in a time of racism and the civil-rights struggle, she would influence presidents (and, in the case of President Obama, an entire election). She became as comfortable hobnobbing with presidents as regular Joes.
She can — and did — make and break books, authors and big-ticket personalities, and always with a wisdom that startled you.
Her supernatural ability to spot and develop talent in doctors, decorators and deacons catapulted those she favored to fame nearly matching her own. And because of what she’s overcome and what she’s accomplished, American women can’t help but to stand in shock and awe at her decision to walk away from it all.
No, I don’t always agree with her — as you may have noticed.
But I never really personally understood her power until last year, when I was sent to cover the Obama campaign and saw her first appearances on his behalf.
Never before had she endorsed a candidate. At that point in the campaign, everyone knew that Hillary Rodham Clinton couldn’t lose and that Obama couldn’t win.
And then O went out for O, and the rest is history.
Will I miss her? I won’t have to. She’s no more going away than the snow in Iowa in the winter.
But it won’t be the same.