Oprah Shares Touching Last Words She Spoke To Her Mother Vernita Lee

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Saying goodbye to a loved one is never easy, and even the great Oprah Winfrey struggled to find the words to say to her mother Vernita Lee in her final hours. 

In an emotional interview with People, the legendary talk show host opened up about her last moments with her mom, who passed away on Thanksgiving Day at her home in Milwaukee at the age of 83. "In hospice care they have a little book about the little conversations," Oprah told the mag. "I thought, 'Isn’t this strange? I am Oprah Winfrey, and I’m reading a hospice care book on what to say at the end.'" Adding, "I just thought, 'What is the truth for me? There isn’t going to be an answer in a book. What is it that I need to say?' I was praying for a way in." And she found one. 

In the days leading up to Vernita's passing, Oprah was spending time with her mother while also maintaining her previous work commitments (which included attending the launch of Michelle Obama‘s book, Becoming, in Chicago). However, after the OWN creator told her mother "goodbye" for what she thought would be the last time (she even flew to a speaking engagement in Boston right after), Oprah realized that that couldn't be the end. So, she cleared her schedule — canceling all of her meetings — and flew back to Milwaukee to say "everything [she] wanted to say" to her mom and get the closure she needed.

"I went back. I sat in that hot room," Oprah said chuckling at the memory, recalling how she watched hours upon hours of daytime TV shows on a loop. "I sat in the room, and I sat in the room. I was about to lose my fricking mind in that room, but I sat...I waited for a way to say what I wanted to say," she explained before admitting she couldn't find the words to say that day. It wasn't until the next morning — after she did some soul searching —that she finally felt she knew what she needed to do.

"I just walked in with my iPhone, and a voice said, 'Play some music.' Mahalia Jackson popped up... I thought, 'Oh, that’s good. Mahalia Jackson, Precious Lord,'" she recalled. "Wintley Phipps (Gospel singer) is a really great friend of mine. I thought, 'What if I call Wintley and got him to sing 'Precious Lord' to her?' I called Wintley, and asked him to FaceTime. He sang 'Precious Lord' live to her from his kitchen table."

It was after Oprah played "another one of her [mom's] favorite artists Joshua Nelson" that she said she realized "the music gave [her] an opening to say what [she] needed to say."

"What I said was, 'Thank you. Thank you, because I know it’s been hard for you. It was hard for you as a young girl having a baby, in Mississippi. No education. No training. No skills. Seventeen, you get pregnant with this baby. Lots of people would have told you to give that baby away. Lots of people would’ve told you to abort that baby. You didn’t do that. I know that was hard,'" Oprah shared. "'I want you to know that no matter what, I know that you always did the best you knew how to do. And look how it turned out.'"

"Then I told her, 'You should be able to … you should go in peace... What you want it to be, what I want it to be, is as peaceful as possible.'" Oprah and Vernita then shared a touching moment with Oprah's sister who told their mother: "'Please forgive yourself, because I’ve forgiven you for giving me away.'"

"It was just really sacred and beautiful," Oprah added. "I would say to anybody—and if you live long enough, everybody goes through it—say the things that you need to say while the people are still alive, so that you are not one of those people living with regret about what you would’ve, should’ve, could’ve said."

Photo: Getty Images


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