Many of you, (notice I’m not including myself) tuned in to MTV last season to watch Joseph “Rev. Run” Simmons and his silly ass family’s “REALITY” show.  Now I’ve been all over this TV series because of its lack of authenticity and seeming scripted content.  However, Today I will give them a break.  Rev Run and his entire squad appeared Monday on the Oprah Winfrey Show to promote the April 9th premiere of  Run’s House. This time the kids won’t just be shucking and jiving for the camera, the premier episode will air clips of the family from the hospital bed of Justine Simmons moments after delivering her still-born baby daughter.  

In the clips, aired on Oprah Winfrey’s show, their sons Jojo, 17, Daniel “Diggy,” 12; and Russell, 10 were brought into the hospital room first and informed on camera of the sad news by their mother, Justine. Then their 23-year-old Vanessa and 19-year-old Angela were told that the baby had passed away. Run however then goes into his now famous soliloquies emphasizing how thankful he was to still have his wife and each of his children.  

Winfrey asked Rev. Run why he decided to allow MTV cameras to record such a private moment.  “We showed you fun, we showed you the happiness,” Run explained of the show’s first two seasons. “We told you in the cliff-hanger of the second season that we’re having a baby. People are emotionally involved. We were going through something. You had fun with us, [now] pray with us, mourn with us, laugh with us, it’s a reality show. I’m not gonna stop the reality.” 

Halfway through Justine’s pregnancy, doctors discovered that the fetus had an omphalocele, a birth defect that caused her organs to grow outside her body, according to People magazine. The religious couple decided to go ahead with the pregnancy, and on Sept. 26, Justine gave birth via C-section to a 4-lb., 5-oz. girl whom the couple named Victoria Anne. The baby died less than two hours after her birth at a hospital near the family’s Saddle River, N.J., home. 

Although I honestly can’t stand the show and that’s coming from a Run-DMC junkie, I had a lot of respect for what Rev Run did.  Often times death and sorrow is something that we keep inside, private.  We hate to let others see us cry, male or female. This was a show that made me reflect on recent tragedy in my life and made me realize that suffering is worldwide.  I envy how the Simmons chose to deal with the tragedy in their life and thank them for helping me get over mine.  SALUTE.