Free Everybody's Got Something by Robin Roberts, Veronica Chambers Page B

bought mementos that made our home come alive. You can’t do much to military housing except change the paint. But Mom made each of the many cookie-cutter homes we lived in special. I was a rambunctious kid, full of energy, always happy to toss around anything that bounced. How many times had I broken something in my mother’s house? How many times had I cried harder than she would have ever yelled? How many times had she held me and told me that things don’t matter, people do? Now it was me, holding her, wiping away her tears and whispering assurances. But Mom wasn’t a child. She was an elderly woman doing her best to grow old with dignity.
    The next day, Mom was scheduled to discuss her book on ABC’s The View . In the last years of her life, Mom seemed to be on her own roller-coaster ride, rolling from fragility to fierceness and back again. The morning of her TV appearance, she was back in fine form. My Team Beauty—the Glam Squad, Elena and Petula—worked their magic on Mom. Diandre, my trusty stylist, dressed her in a stunning copper-colored St. John outfit bought special for the occasion. It was wonderful to be able to give Momma the royal treatment. After the Glam Squad was done getting Mom ready for the show, she looked in the mirror and jokingly said, “Can I help it?” Meaning, “Can I help it that I look this good?” And she did look good.

    During the interview, she was so funny and so generous with her life lessons that she had the audience and the ladies of The View eating out of her hand. I was particularly moved by a moment Mom and Whoopi Goldberg shared on the set after the cameras stopped rolling. Apparently Mom’s mannerisms and wise words resonated with Whoopi and made her think of her own mother. I’ll never forget Whoopi kneeling in front of Mom, tears in her eyes as they spoke. Whoopi had lost her mother just two years before. I thanked God in heaven that I still had mine.

Chapter 11
Tea & Sympathy
    T hat June, Lara Spencer and I traveled together to London for the Queen’s Jubilee. I still hadn’t told her about my diagnosis. Sam was the only co-anchor who knew. Back in late April he figured out on his own that something just wasn’t right with me, and I confided in him. I appreciated how he kept the news to himself. Everything changes when you tell someone you’re sick. I just wanted to be treated like Robin.
    I went off to London with some very good news. When the tests first came in about Sally-Ann being my match, the first indications were that she was a 3-for-3 match. By the time additional tests had been completed, it showed that Sally-Ann was a 10-for-10. She could not have been a better match for me if we had been born identical twins. While so much of my journey with MDS was puzzling and seemed so unfair, I knew that news like this was more than a gift; it was a big, flashing neon sign from God reminding me to let myself be led by faith and not by fear.
    Lara and I always have a great time working together. She left us in 2003 to host The Insider , but she returned in 2011 and I was so glad. We have a similar zest for life, and neither one of us take ourselves too seriously. We are both nuts about sports, especially tennis. Lara was also a sports reporter at one time, and she attended Penn State on an athletic scholarship for springboard and platform diving. A huge bonus is that we have the same size shoe, so we share! I knew it would be my last work assignment abroad for some time, so I really let myself enjoy every moment, from a champagne toast with Lara on the plane to getting dressed up in a fascinator hat for the Jubilee. We stayed with our crew at the Metropolitan Hotel in the heart of London. The hotel restaurant off the lobby turns into a raging nightclub in the evenings. We didn’t have to venture far to enjoy ourselves after work. We were in London for only a few days, but we made every moment count.
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    I always enjoy visiting London. The first time I