Today fan-favorite Sheinelle Jones has made her official return to the popular NBC morning show just a few months after the death of her husband, Uche Ojeh.
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While appearing on Tuesday’s episode, Jones opened up about the grieving process and why she called the experience a “beautiful nightmare.”
“My heart is shattered in a million pieces,” she told Today host Savannah Guthrie. “The life that I’ve known since I was 19 is no more. I’ve always wanted kids, and I have three kids of my own now, and they’ve lost their dad. And I’m their mom. It sucks.”
Her husband tragically passed away amid his battle with globastoma. He was 45 years old.
Recalling the moments before Ojeh’s passing, Jones remembered holding his hands, and they both said, “I love you.” She said it felt like a “full circle moment” between them.
“That’s what I mean by ‘beautiful nightmare,” she pointed out. “Because I found beauty in the nightmare. And trust me, it is a nightmare to watch a 45-year-old do two triathlons and live and breathe off of soccer and his kids. To take a guy like that and watch him have to deal with this fight was a nightmare. But the way he fought it and the way we rallied together and the way we saw the best of humanity, that was beautiful.”
Sheinelle Jones Opens Up About Her Today Absence, Noting She Knew About Her Husband’s Cancer For More Than Year Before Leaving the Show
Jones shared that she knew about the diagnosis before Ojeh’s marathon and more than a year before she took her leave of absence from Today. She stated that she was not “faking” anything.
“I thought, ‘I’m not faking it. My joy is real,” Jones continued. “I was on television for almost a year with this. I would do the show and then hop in the car and go be with him during chemo.”
Although it was devastating watching Ojeh’s cancer battle, Jones said she believed he was going to be OK. “I knew it was gonna be tough,” she acknowledged. “But we all believed that he would be fine.”
She further stated, “I watched him in his toughest moments; his faith is what gave him peace. So I think, ‘Okay, if Uche can have faith, when his life is on the line, surely I can and surely we all can.”
Noting her excitement to return to Today, Jones said she hopes to encourage others to find strength in times of grief. She also hopes that others remember that cancer does not have to steal joy. “We can get up, we can get out of bed, and we can go to work,” she said. “We can go to school, we can squeeze the most out of the days that we have.”
Jones then added, “And honestly, I feel like Uche’s heartbeat lives on in mine. So I owe it to him to just squeeze the most I can out of this thing.”