Do you ever listen to LeVar Burton get all choked up while he's talking about how much he loves his out and proud daughter and how he only wants her to be happy, no matter who she dates, and just...cry.
If you wanna cry like I did, this happened in his podcast ‘LeVar Burton Reads’ toward the end of the episode called “The Simplest Equation”.
[Transcript:]
Podcast: LeVar Burton reads.
Episode: “The Simplest Equation” by Nicky Drayden
Timestamp: 33:00 to 35:50
LeVar Burton: [exhales] Wow. I was REALLY nervous about reading this story for a couple of reasons. But as I sit here now I realize that, as is generally the case, all of those fears were unfounded. First let me tell you why I was a little fearful, a little reticent about this story. I was nervous, to tell you the truth, about being able to pull off a love story between two women. I just had, y'know, a fear in my mind. Boy, I have a legitimate reason to be concerned! And I really want to DELIVER on this story because it's so BEAUTIFUL!
And I recognize, to my surprise, in this now moment that, um... this story is in some ways a love poem to my daughter Mika. Who is out and proud and I love... [overcome with emotion] this child fiercely. I mean she's not a child, she's 24 - she's 25 now. But y'know, she is. She's my baby and she's my only daughter and... ahh... the... tenderness. The beauty of that relationship... between our heroine and the [alien woman] is very much - it's a story of forbidden love, one that I'm really familiar with, y'know? I've dated a fair number of white women in my past and y'know thats... in some quarters of both communities - black and white - that's taboo, that's forbidden.
[sniffling] Um... and I worry sometimes about my daughter - y'know like any parent - concerned that she will fall in love and get her heart broken. And it's no different, y'know? No matter who she loves, I want her to find that sort of tenderness that's present in this story. And I didn't realize I until I started doing the postscript on it. What a love poem this story is... to my kid and to girls like her, all over the world.
[two deep sighs] Stories, y'all. That's the power of storytelling.