Make no mistake about it, Katies leaving The Today Show is like a death. Its like a death for all of us who spent the last fifteen years being informed, entertained, challenged and comforted by her. If Katie was there when we awoke each morning, somehow it felt as if the world was in its proper place. Even if the news was not always joyful, she always was, and that seemed enough for us. And now shes gone, and we are grieving her loss. We are mourning our mornings!

When someone dies, they must be mourned. They must be remembered for the good in their lives, they must be thanked for the contributions they made to those who remain, and stories about them must be told and re-told. When all of these happen, their death will be mourned not as a tragedy but simply as a normal event which takes place each and every day. Someone dies, someone is born, that is the way of the world.

But sometimes in our lives, someone comes along and makes a difference. Katie is one of those special people. We felt that she understood us normal folk, even if there was such a distance between her life and ours. She is extremely wealthy, most of us are not. She seems to float through life effortlessly, we seem to have more on our plates that need to be addressed. Her life appears to be flawless, without pain and struggle, unlike our own.

But that is not so. In fact, it is only because of the pain and suffering that she suffered in her own life that she could touch us emotionally. She knew what grief was all about, because she had to deal with the illness and death of a loved one just as we do. Her husband, Jay Monahan, died of colon cancer. It was all very sudden, with little warning, and they had two small children at the time. Katie talks about her ordeal in a marvelous Good Housekeeping article (http://magazines.ivillage.com/goodhousekeeping/hb/health/articles/0,,284594_290498-2,00.html) that should be required reading for all those who love her. In the article she discusses her reactions to finding out Jay had cancer, her feelings as his cancer progressed, how his death affected her and the kids, and how she became a vocal advocate for cancer screening after his death. She did not allow Jays death to overwhelm her, she used Jays death to bring hope to others. And she became a deeper and more giving personality because of what she experienced. His death was her teacher.

Katie knows how pain looks and feels, and so she can speak to us with honesty and with a realistic understanding of the pain we go through when someone we love dies or is struck down by a dread disease. And that is why we love her so much, she is believable because she knows what shes talking about. We trust her because shes been there. She understands well that we only learn anything about ourselves by how we respond to the losses in our lives.

It may have seemed that NBC took a long time to say goodbye to her, but that isnt so. She touched so many, and they each needed to say goodbye in their own way. And now she moves on to another network, another context, another life. No one knows what her future will look like. But we all know that her past was a glorious one, a gift to us all. Thank you, Katie, we wish you godspeed in your new career.