As a young child, I remem­ber watch­ing Mister Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood with my sister Willa in our sunny living room. Willa could never quite remem­ber the name of the show, and lovingly referred to it as ​“the old man with the houses” and occa­sion­ally ​“the old man who made me not scared of being sucked down the drain anymore.” I didn’t watch the show as frequently as I would have liked to, as PBS didn’t show reruns very often. But when episodes did come on, my sister and I would settle down, bubbling with excite­ment, while a wash of calm and comfort surrounded the room. We would become instantly capti­vated, and even my parents would find them­selves stand­ing idly by, watch­ing along, also mesmer­ized by the gentle voice of Fred Rogers and the warm glow that magi­cally radi­ated from inside the TV and out into our home. 

Mister Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood was differ­ent than most children’s shows, in that it had a deep history in our family. My mom grew up watch­ing the show as well. Fred Rogers became some­thing akin to a father figure to her when she needed one as a child. My mother’s father left her family when she was three, and because of this, she and her little sister spent a lot of time home alone after school while her mom – my grandma – was working hard to support their family. When Willa and I watched Mister Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood, my mom would often remi­nisce about how it was Mister Rogers’ week long special on divorce that brought her solace and clarity in her child­hood years when she tried to make sense of the loss she had expe­ri­enced as a child. At a young age, it was clear to me that this Mister Rogers man had the power to take a very serious and sad situ­a­tion and give someone great comfort and hope. The fact that my mom had remem­bered such a small detail from so long ago meant that it was a big deal, and so I held Mister Rogers with the utmost respect and admi­ra­tion from the beginning. 

While Mister Rogers was a favorite show in my house­hold, it was really later in life that I began to appre­ci­ate it. During what I can say in hind­sight was without a doubt the hardest period of my life, Mister Rogers had somehow found his way back to me once again. A family friend told me that when she was feeling over­whelmed while writing her thesis paper, she would play Mister Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood in the back­ground, and that his gentle voice and reas­sur­ing words would give her the strength to power through. I hadn’t watched Mister Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood in years, and had prac­ti­cally forgot­ten about it alto­gether, but was excited to see the show with new eyes. But even though I was excited, I never expected a tearful reac­tion like the one I expe­ri­enced the second the gentle theme song began to play. Like reunit­ing with an old friend, I was welcomed back into a world of wonder, magic, and hope. It was a world that I had desper­ately missed, and while watch­ing Mister Rogers’ Neigh­bor­hood on that awful summer evening, I saw a tiny flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. Watch­ing Mister Rogers again made me see the message I had taken for granted as a child. Somehow, Fred Rogers has an almost spir­i­tual way of telling you through the TV exactly what you need to hear when you’ve hit rock bottom. And for me, it was the simple message of ​“the way you feel won’t last forever.”