Miracle Children, Oprah and the Ice in my Blood

Those nights when I find myself watching the 11:00pm rerun of the day’s Oprah are often short of quality sleep. Chances are good that something annoying and/or disturbing will be shown. There was one of those nights last week.

Having fallen asleep with the TV on (bad policy, I know) I woke up mid-Oprah. She was showing a touching YouTube tribute made by the parents of a baby who lived for 99 well appreciated and celebrated days. Unlike Oprah and her guest, Celine Dion, I did not end up in tears. It was a moment that I did wonder if there was ice in my blood.

But my second thought, the one that nagged at me as I tried to go back to sleep, was the torrent of tears coming from a woman who has brought her considerable celebrity to bear in the presidential campaign of a man who has, in fact, denied the human rights of the smallest and most vulnerable people.

We live in a society which is comfortable with the discomfort some have with pithing frogs in biology class. Yet so many are enthralled, including lachrymose media icon Oprah, with a man who has no qualms about pithing humans.

One of us has a problem, a disconnect, an imbalance. And it might not be me.