So Far Away: The Things That Still Hold Us Together

Television Series: Reba

Carole King: So Far Away

Reba: I'm a Survivor

Open – You Remind Me of Reba

My daughter told me recently that I remind her of Reba.

Not because I sing (trust me, I don’t) and not because of the red hair or the country twang.

She said it was the way I was smart, fun, sassy.

The way I held things together, even when they were broken.

At the time, I laughed feeling greatly honored.

Now, I think maybe she was onto something.

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Scene One – Melissa’s House and the First Episode

I met Melissa the way you meet someone in a sitcom — nervous, unsure, bracing for the worst.

She was my mom’s boyfriend’s ex-wife, and everything about that sentence felt like a warning sign.

I was sure she’d hate me. I was sure she’d make me feel like an outsider.

But instead, she opened her door and gave me a second home.

Warm. Funny. Kind.

The kind of woman who could stitch a houseful of chaos into something that still felt like family.

It felt familiar in a way I couldn’t explain. I’d grown up a Texas girl myself—spent time in Houston, had family roots scattered across the state—and the show carried that same mix of fire and softness that I recognized in the women around me.

It was at Melissa’s house that I first saw Reba.

I didn’t know then that it would become one of my comfort shows, that it would become a thread running through my life.

But sitting on her couch, in a house I once feared and now loved, I watched Reba laugh and cry and carry her broken family with her boots planted firmly on the ground.

And I saw something I didn’t know I needed to see.

Melissa didn’t just open her door once.

She kept showing up.

I remember the day she came to our house carrying a secret the kind of secret you only share with someone you trust completely.

Tucked inside her purse was a pregnancy test.

She didn’t go to her best friend’s house. She didn’t go to her mother’s house.

She came to us.

To my mom.

They sat in our kitchen, laughing and crying and waiting for the little pink plus sign that would change everything.

And when it came, my mom was the first person she told.

Not because it was easy.

Not because it was simple.

But because somehow, despite the weirdness and brokenness and tangled-up pasts, they had chosen each other.

They had become family, in the ways that matter most.

I don’t think I will ever forget sitting on that couch in Benchley, TX at Melissa’s watching Reba for the first time.

A beautiful show about messy people loving each other anyway.

A show about families that didn’t look perfect, but still managed to hold.

Maybe that’s why it felt like home.

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Scene Two – A Different Kind of Family

Carl, Melissa’s ex, my mom’s boyfriend at the time was someone who proved love isn’t always about staying.

It’s about showing up.

Even when the lines blur and the titles shift.

I didn’t make it easy on him. I had every intention of being stubborn, of keeping my guard up, of giving him a hard time just because I could. But Carl didn’t push. He told me plainly: “I’m not here to replace anyone. I’m just here to show up, and I’ll keep doing that until you believe I mean it.”

And the truth is, a part of me softened early on—because my dad, who didn’t say things like that lightly, told me Carl was a good guy. An old friend. Someone I could trust.

Carl and Melissa weren’t married anymore.

They had their own hurts and scars.

But they loved their kids more than they hated the past.

And somehow, they managed to build something steady, something kind, something I had never seen before.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was love.

Real love.

Messy, complicated, and still showing up.

Like the best episodes of Reba, it wasn’t about getting everything right... it was about making the broken pieces shine.

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Scene Three – The Coffee Station, the Subway, and the Butterfly Effect

I think about how life happens sometimes — not in straight lines, but in dominoes.

Little moments tipping into bigger ones.

I went to a concert at The Coffee Station in College Station, Tx because Becky invited me.

Becky (Melissa's youngest daughter) invited me because she knew a guy in a band.

Melissa drove us there, because that’s just who she was the woman who made sure the dreams of other people’s kids didn’t get left behind.

And because I walked into a Subway sandwich shop that night and eventually gave my number to a boy who worked there I thought was cute...

I met Jamie.

The man I would eventually marry!

Funny how a sandwich shop and a borrowed ride can lead you to the love of your life.

Little ripples, little moments.

Moments so small, you almost miss them.

And somehow, it all stacked up and built the life I have now.

Looking back, it all still kind of blows my mind.

It’s a crazy thing, how people cross your path without knowing what they’re setting in motion.

How the smallest choices; a ride, an invitation, a second of courage can change everything!

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Scene Four – Carl’s Daily Ritual

Carl wasn’t perfect. None of us are.

But he loved his kids with a constancy that I have never forgotten.

Every day, without fail, he’d come through the door carrying something for my mom a candy bar, a flower, a Dr. Pepper.

A little piece of love in his hands.

And before anything else, before dinner or television or stories about work, he’d go straight to the phone.

He’d call his kids.

Talk to them one by one.

Every day.

I remember watching his face light up when they answered (if they weren’t already on the phone when he arrived waiting for him to get home) like the sun rising just for him.

He’d bounce from foot to foot, grinning, glowing, sharing tiny bits of the light they shared with him once he hung up.

It wasn’t for show.

It was ritual. It was truth.

It was the clearest thing I ever saw about what it meant to be tethered to love, even when families split apart.

Every call wasn’t a chore.

It wasn’t a box to check.

It was the HIGHLIGHT of his day!

He wanted to hear it all:

The little victories, the funny moments, the small everyday things that most people rush past.

To him, nothing about his kids was ever small.

And if they weren’t there to call, he found ways to carry them with him anyway stories, jokes, bragging rights tucked into every conversation.

Some lessons you don’t even realize you’re learning at the time.

But now I know:

That’s what real love looks like.

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Scene Five – Terry Holliway, So Far Away

Years later, I found myself rewatching Reba — pregnant, on bedrest, curled up under the weight of waiting and worry.

And there it was.

The episode: Terry Holliway.

(Season 2, Episode 15. Aired February 7, 2003.)

Brock and Reba go to what they think is a birthday party, only to find it’s a funeral.

Loss, love, regret wrapped up in the way only Reba could wrap it.

Not with melodrama.

With honesty.

With heart.

And at the end, Reba sings “So Far Away” by Carole King. Her voice was soft but strong, with that unmistakable country twang just enough to make it hers, but still honoring the heart of the original. It was one of the most beautiful renditions I’d ever heard… heartfelt, classy, and full of grace.

The song my mother used to sing in the kitchen, when she thought no one was listening.

Carole King was one of my mom’s absolute favorites her voice, her writing, her soul. “So Far Away” wasn’t just a song in our house; it was woven into the fabric of my childhood, always playing low in the background like a heartbeat.

It wasn’t just TV anymore.

It was memory.

It was full circle.

It was everything I hadn’t even known I was carrying, humming back to me from the screen.

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Final Scene—

Some people stay in your life forever.

Some leave, but never really leave.

Some songs don’t fade out they just weave themselves quieter into the background, still holding the melody for when you need it.

Melissa is still in my life.

Carl’s love for his kids is still in my memory.

And the echoes of kindness, resilience, and laughter that I learned from them (and from Reba) are still in my bloodstream, still in my daughter’s words when she calls me strong.

The world spins us so far away sometimes.

But love... real love has a funny way of holding on, even when everything else moves. Love finds a way to hold the note.