- Coming up on "The Whitney Reynolds Show."

- "Do unto others as you would do unto yourselves."

- That's right.

Well, thank you- - Especially this day and age with what goes on.

- There's always still hope to keep on going forward.

- So we have a surprise.

Josue Cervantes, you get a $5,000 scholarship to go (crowd clapping) towards college.

- "The Whitney Reynolds Show" is made possible by Together at Peace, a foundation supporting hopeful bereavement care for the world by inspiring people to find ways to live with, honor, and share the unique love they carry.

Spreading the light that still shines bright.

Together at Peace.

Children's Learning Place, dedicated to empowering young students with the confidence to overcome present and future challenges to promote a brighter future for all.

Kevin O'Connor Law Firm.

When it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Joeperillo.com, where you can browse their selection of pre-owned luxury vehicles, based in Chicago, shipping all over the country.

Simple Modern, drinkware with unique styles for adults and kids.

Take us with you.

"The Adventures of Harry Moon" book series for kids, focusing on becoming your best self with themes of friendship, anti-bullying, and responsibility at harrymoon.org.

Kevin Kelly, Fumee Claire, Mid-West Moving & Storage, Mike Dyer, Brendon Studzinski, and by these funders.

♪ Keep holding on ♪ ♪ The tide's gonna turn in time ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're strong and beautiful ♪ ♪ All alone ♪ - Hello, and welcome to "The Whitney Reynolds Show."

We are so glad that you are joining us in this new season.

There is so much negativity out there.

And today, we wanna remind you there's still something to celebrate.

♪ You're strong and beautiful ♪ (audience cheering) ♪ All on your own ♪ ♪ You're strong and beautiful ♪ ♪ All alone ♪ (audience cheering) (uplifting music continues) ♪ 'Cause you're strong ♪ - We sat down and chatted with a young man who's been called a miracle.

He has been beating all the odds and we are going to celebrate that.

- The accident, it was just crazy to me.

One minute, I was living a normal life, like running around, playing sports.

And the next moment, (vehicle whooshing) (tires screeching) (vehicles crashing) (siren wailing) my life was just very different.

- He just had a ton of medical stuff, a ton of physical stuff.

He was contracted all over.

His arms were stiff.

He was trached.

His legs were completely contracted.

And so he was just in absolute horrible shape when he got to us.

And it scared a lot of the nursing staff 'cause he was just so fragile.

- So I pull in this parking lot, it had just started raining.

And Caleb's a young driver, 16, but he had driven in the rain many times.

He went 10 minutes one way.

I went 10 minutes the other.

I literally walk into my house, my phone rings, it says Caleb Freeman.

And I answer and there's a man on the other line.

He said, "Sir, do you have two sons?"

I mean, it kinda took me back like, who is this?

- Oh.

- I said, "Hey."

Said, "Who is this?

Why do you have my son's phone?"

He said, "Do you have two sons?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "Well, they've been in an accident," and, "How quickly can you get here?"

So my wife and I jump in the car.

We're driving down there.

It's raining harder.

And we had lost a son four years before that to cancer.

So just the thought of losing another one at that point was unbearable to us.

Well, the EMS worker met us and said... Clayton was in one ambulance, our 14-year-old.

He had a concussion, but he was in shock.

He didn't remember anything.

Caleb was in another ambulance and they wouldn't let us go over there.

And the EMS worker said, "You gotta get to the ER as quickly as you can."

About 30 minutes in, they let us go in to see him.

And it was about as heartbreaking as you can imagine.

I mean, he was just, he was out, and blood everywhere.

And so this nurse, I pulled her to the side and I said, "Ma'am, I need an update here.

No one's telling me anything."

And she said, "I don't know how to tell you this, but," she said, "your son needs a miracle."

And that's when reality really set in for me.

In that moment, I was like, this is life or death.

- Caleb Freeman, a former high school athlete from Oklahoma, was involved in a life-altering car accident.

Now this is a call no parent wants to receive and a scene that was shocking to see.

When you heard, "He needs a miracle-" - Mm-hmm.

- Did you take that chance?

'Cause they gave you a chance.

Sometimes it's like- - Less than 10%.

- Less than 10%.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Did you take that 10% and double down on it?

Or did you just say, let's see how tonight goes?

- Well, I'll tell you this, and this is where the story gets pretty interesting.

But a lady came running into the ER.

She's wearing a white outfit and she had blood all over her.

And she said, "Are you Caleb's parents?"

And we said, "Yes."

And she said, "I want you to know I saw the accident."

She goes, "I'm a certified CPR trained instructor."

She goes, "I ran across the highway and nobody was tending to Caleb."

She was like the third person on the accident scene.

Come to find out nobody was tending to Caleb 'cause they thought he was dead.

They didn't wanna touch him.

So she climbed over the console.

'Cause the semi-truck, 75,000 pounds was still pinned up against Caleb's side of the car.

So she climbed in the passenger side and climbed over the middle.

She said she stopped the bleeding.

She cleared his airway to make sure he's breathing.

But she's a Christian.

And she said, "I want you to know I prayed for your son."

And she said, "God has told me your son's gonna live."

- Oh.

- Now, that's a big thing to tell somebody in a moment of uncertainty.

She didn't know anything about us.

She didn't know I was a pastor.

She didn't know any of that stuff.

But for her to tell me that, it was a bold statement, but there was something about that moment where I felt like, okay, this is gonna be different.

The outcome's gonna be different.

- I worked with hundreds of patients and we never see... We see a lot of great outcomes, but nothing to his maximum, like miracle potential, but it's truly a miracle.

When I first met him, I didn't think he would recover the way he did.

- He has a diffuse axonal brain injury, grade three.

There's only three grades.

Grade three is the worst.

He was a three on the Glasgow Coma Scale when he arrived.

Three is the lowest.

You're brain-dead.

I will never forget that surgeon looked at me and said, "We don't expect your son to live through the night.

We're gonna do everything we can to support him, but you need to prepare for that."

- What was it like for you to see him start beating these statistics that they were saying?

- Yeah.

Well, living through the night was the first big step.

And then Caleb, he likes to say he was taking an eight-week nap.

Isn't that right, Caleb?

(Whitney laughs) - Yeah.

When I like to put it in good terms, (Jeremy laughs) I just say, "I was well-rested.

(Whitney and Jeremy laughing) I was just taking a nice...

I was in coma heaven."

- Coma heaven, yeah.

And so we moved our family (Whitney chuckles) to Denver, Colorado.

There's a specialty hospital there.

Caleb's still at...

I mean, eight weeks, he had no response.

No "Hey, Caleb, blink your eyes, squeeze our hand."

None of that stuff.

- Nothing.

- Nothing.

- For how long again?

- Eight weeks, two months.

- Had you given up at all during that time of maybe this is it?

- Well, I will tell you, there were moments.

Because it was like you're clinging to faith, you're hoping, all those things.

You think maybe this is what it's gonna be like for the rest of our life, right?

- Yeah.

- And then one day, he's sitting in his wheelchair, just kinda staring off.

And he had opened his eyes, but there was no, like the lights were on, but nobody was home kinda thing.

- Yeah.

- And then one day, his therapist said, "Caleb, can you nod your head yes?"

And what'd you do?

Like a boss.

(Whitney laughs) He nodded his head.

He woke up and the doctors could not believe it.

- It was true.

God just said, "Now's the time."

And when I shook my head, gradually, I started progressing little by little.

- Did you have a plan in place for when he did wake up?

How we would tell him?

- Honestly, if my wife was sitting right here, she would say, "We adopted this motto of one day at a time.

One day at a time."

- Mm-hmm.

- Because if you thought too far beyond that, it was just crippling to think about.

- Right.

- So we would get up in the morning, we'd say, "Let's just do the next right thing.

What's the next right thing?"

And so as Caleb started waking up, he couldn't speak at first.

He had to relearn how to talk.

- Uh-huh.

- So he would use a spelling board to spell.

- Yes.

- He had to relearn how to swallow, how to breathe on his own, all those things.

It was a long process.

I mean, we ended up moving to another rehab facility, which is kind of an independent living facility in Omaha, Nebraska.

So we had other steps in the way, but we didn't know any of that.

It was like we just kept walking through the next door that was open for us.

- What was it like for you to learn about what you had been through in those eight weeks?

- I was learning God was truly doing something bigger in my life- - Yeah.

- Than I could ever do for myself.

I thought about it.

I had a specific dream for my own life.

I wanted to become a professional athlete someday.

Whenever I was in high school, I didn't understand that.

I was like, why am I the one who's not able to play sports and all these other people that are able to play sports?

So it didn't look very fair to me.

- We're seeing 2023 Caleb that is speaking and we know you made it.

But I forgot, in the midst of your hard time, you were in high school, and that's hard enough itself.

- On this earth, there's always gonna be someone that has it a lot better than you and someone that has it a lot worse.

- Brain injury, he'll live with this the rest of his life, right?

So you don't just get over it.

You just endure.

And Caleb, in many ways, was built for this.

And so every day, I didn't have to push him too hard.

Caleb always pushes himself.

If I said, "Caleb, I want you to do this," he'll say, "I'm gonna do it twice."

He always goes the extra mile.

"Hey, Caleb, let's go walk the football field.

Let's do it up and back."

"No, let's do it up and back twice."

And so Caleb would go out to that football field and he had a walker at first.

He'd go up and down for hours.

And then he got to the walker to the side.

I'd hold his arm, up and down for hours.

Then he started doing it on his own, up and down for hours.

We bought him knee pads 'cause he would fall down so much and he would get back up and keep going.

He got to the point where he was kinda trotting.

And so I like to say that's a picture of who he is.

Caleb is a motivated, determined, committed young man.

And man, I'm telling you what, that's been an amazing thing to watch.

- The wreck is a defining moment.

- Mm.

- Life was never going to be the same.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- But as you said, things blossomed, actually, out of that wreck.

- Yeah, mm-hmm.

- And you became more talkative.

And not only have you become a singer, you're a dancer, you are putting yourself out there in ways that pre-wreck you weren't doing.

- And then the other goal I have, maybe to be able to play sports again (Jeremy chuckles) on the side maybe.

And the biggest goal right now is to travel around the country and get to speak just wherever we can.

- So we know what it's like to lose a child.

We know what it's like to have a child kinda recover progressively.

So we make a lot of hospital visits.

We talk to a lot of people, minister to a lot of people.

Because people, they are looking for hope, and we want them to know that you can overcome, even in the most unimaginable situation.

Even in loss, you can make it.

You can overcome.

- There's always still hope to keep on going forward.

- Mm-hmm.

- Giving up is only when you quit and refuse to get back up.

- Yeah.

- If you will continue to get back up- - Mm-hmm.

- Through your mistakes, honestly, you're made stronger because then you learn what not to do.

So if you always keep getting back up- - That's right.

- And going after life the hardest, those are the biggest difference in the world we'll see.

- Caleb's story is one that proves, even in tragedy, it is possible to create waves that ultimately change the world.

(crowd cheering and clapping) - Here you go.

That's for Caleb, buddy.

- Uh-huh, yeah.

- Give me a big smile.

(person laughing) - All right.

(gentle music continues) - Okay, team, I'm a big fan of first, first steps, first love.

And guess what.

We're taking you to my first red carpet.

Come on, let's go.

It was a night of lights, camera, and celebration.

The star-studded cast of "About My Father" hosted their red carpet premiere in our show's hometown of Chicago.

And we joined the excitement for it all.

- You know, people don't sort of, well, do normal premieres anymore.

- I know.

- It's like the business of movies has changed.

- I want this.

- So I'm really, as corny as that sounds, I'm really grateful and excited to be at a premiere.

- It's been lovely.

I've had a busy day.

- Well, I'm stoked to be here.

- Right?

- Yeah.

- Is this surreal for you?

- Kind of.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I think so, a little bit.

- Man, this is just like every filmmaker's dream to work with this group of actors.

- Tonight means celebrating a lot of hard work that we all put in over a year ago.

Seeing a story that's very close to Sebastian come to fruition.

- Right?

- The feeling I get on stage, watching people laugh, is 10 times better than the people actually doing it.

So yeah, I mean, am I happy?

Absolutely.

- It was really lovely to be part of it and work with Robert De Niro.

I mean, please.

- I'm here.

They decided to have the premier here, which makes a lot of sense, obviously.

Salvo and Sebastian are from here and it's great.

- Lead actor and writer, Sebastian Maniscalco, added humor to his life story when creating this film.

The script brought to life the first-generation journey and all the beautiful chaos that families can share.

- Yeah, for me, humor's been kind of the glue that's been keeping my family together.

We're constantly laughing.

There's always somebody that did something funny (Whitney chuckles) or we're commenting on.

And I talk about my father a lot and my family in my standup act.

But this, I felt needed, these stories needed kind of a bigger platform in the sense that they're kind of relationship-based.

And I felt like a movie would be a good vehicle to express some of the stories I had about my father.

- When I read the script, I was like, I have to direct this.

- Yes.

- Because it's all about Sebastian's relationship with his dad and that first-generation thing.

And that's something that I'm deeply familiar with.

- These people have jobs?

- They got their money in the stock market, not in mayonnaise jars buried in their backyard.

- Everything I'm doing for you that I've ever done for you is for your own good.

- And besides laughs, there were different takeaways for all.

- Yeah, you connect on a human level where, even if I'm not the son of immigrants- (Whitney chuckles) - Right.

- You connect on like a familial level.

- We had another guy said that he called...

When the movie was over, he called his dad immediately.

- I hope with every project that I'm involved with, there's something that an audience can take away, you know?

Not to be too heavy or important about it, I wanna entertain people.

I love doing comedy because it makes people happy.

- Yes.

- And that means a lot to me.

- "Do unto others as you would do unto yourselves."

- That's right.

Well, thank you- - Especially this day and age with what goes on.

(upbeat music continues) - Good, okay, everyone.

- All right, guys.

So can I have everybody's attention?

We're gonna make a quick announcement 'cause I know you guys are hungry and wanna get on to lunch.

We had a board member, Raymond Geraldson, Jr., and he started a scholarship fund.

And so today we have a surprise.

Josue Cervantes, you get a $5,000 scholarship to go towards college.

(crowd applauding) Come on up here.

(speaking faintly) - Ah.

- Ah.

- You're good.

You're so welcome.

We're so proud of you.

- Thank you.

- Oh.

- Wow.

- You're welcome.

- A lot of my baked goods are some flavors that come from my culture and my cultural background.

So I am a Mexican American, so a lot of my flavors are Mexican vanilla, cafe de olla, which is like a Mexican coffee, which I infuse with chocolate to make my chocolate cupcakes or chocolate-batter cakes.

I also infuse a lot of cinnamon, cardamom, star anise, and other different types of flavors that come from my culture.

So I do have my own small business dedicated to baking and pastry.

- It's been a big month for Josue, from graduating high school to being a new business owner to winning a culinary scholarship that will change his life.

- I've always been ambitious.

That's one of the things that I wanted to do, go to college.

And I knew that it was gonna be a struggle, knowing that nobody in my family has ever gone to college before.

So just being able to be the first and seeing that it is possible has really just sparked me and has given me more motivation.

This really helped me a lot, especially by starting off my small business.

Of course, with all of the free equipment that we would receive throughout our first times that we did the camp, I used it as a way to invest myself and invest in my business.

So with all of those free equipment, I started off my small business.

And from there, it started to grow.

- We're Foundation for Culinary Arts.

And so we work to inspire and empower young individuals that wanna pursue a career in the culinary arts.

All of our kids come from disadvantaged, disinvested neighborhoods.

What we really decided is we really wanted to focus on kids that don't have access.

They live in food deserts.

And then they do homework so that they taste different things, so they taste all different types of culinary herbs.

I mean, everything from apple mint to lemon thyme and just regular old basil or purple basil.

They got to buy something that they'd never seen before, talk to the farmer about it, so they can see, one, they can taste different things and see why something's nutritious, what it tastes like, and then, also, how to turn it into something to eat.

Once they come into the Foundation for Culinary Arts family, they're always a part of the family.

So we let them get their toes in, we give them some skills.

But at the end of the day, they're gonna still leave here with portable life skills, which it never hurts to know how to cook, how to feed your family, how to nourish yourself.

We feel that this is a skill set that they'll just take on and will help them throughout their life.

- In 10 years, I do plan on opening my own restaurant and I also do plan on mentoring students, just like my mentors have been mentoring me.

Of course, I'm trying to help as much as I can, giving back to my community, giving back as much as I can.

- Well, I wanna be your first customer.

(Josue and Whitney laughing) Is that a deal?

- Deal.

(upbeat music continues) - Our next guest is an actress and Ernest Hemingway's granddaughter.

She is taking the lead with her own life and being vulnerable with the details.

Let's take a look.

- Another reason why I did this film is because of the son's addiction problem.

And I think that we, so many of us in the world deal with these kinds of issues.

And it's like, how do you deal with it?

- Tackling the topic of addiction and celebrating recovery, Mariel Hemingway is doing this with her recent role and in real life.

- I grew up in Idaho, so growing up in a small town made it so that nobody cares who you are.

(laughs) Nobody cares, and you don't realize when you grow up in a tiny town that it is sort of...

I mean, I knew my grandfather was famous, but I didn't really understand that probably until I was 16 years old.

So my childhood is probably the reason why I am who I am today.

The part that was challenging was that my parents drank too much and there was, like so many of us, we grow up in families, we love them, but they're dealing with their own pain and they're probably self-medicating that, which I didn't understand as a kid.

But you deal with it.

And I love them, but I wasn't always, I didn't always feel safe in the sense I didn't feel like anybody cared about me.

And it wasn't...

I knew my parents loved me, but it was because they were dealing with so much of their own stuff that there was a sense of isolation.

But at the end of the day, I probably wouldn't be who I am.

- She's open with her own battles and hopes her tough moments will encourage others to push through.

- First of all, you have to talk about it.

My whole thing is I wrote "Out Came the Sun," which is a book about my family and the mental health struggles of my family and myself.

And the reason why I did that is I wanna say to everybody, I wanna give them all permission, look, tell your story.

Find somebody, a safe place, write in a journal.

Find a person, a therapist, a somebody, a coach, whoever it is.

Tell your story first.

Because once you tell your story, then your story gets to become a story.

Because when you hold your story inside, that trauma becomes something, oftentimes, physical.

And it's not the sole solution, but it's the beginning of finding that path towards recovery.

- Today, we had so much to celebrate, our season six kickoff in our new CineCity Studio.

And we're a show that loves to move the dial forward with tough topics.

But we wanna remind you, some of those really delicate details can still be celebrated because they're pushing you forward.

Remember, your story matters.

(uplifting music continues) ♪ Turns to pours ♪ (uplifting music continues) - "The Whitney Reynolds Show" is made possible by Together at Peace, a foundation supporting hopeful bereavement care for the world by inspiring people to find ways to live with, honor, and share the unique love they carry.

Spreading the light that still shines bright.

Together at Peace.

Children's Learning Place, dedicated to empowering young students with the confidence to overcome present and future challenges to promote a brighter future for all.

Kevin O'Connor Law Firm.

When it comes to your injuries, we take it personally.

Joeperillo.com, where you can browse their selection of pre-owned luxury vehicles.

Based in Chicago, shipping all over the country.

Simple Modern, drinkware with unique styles for adults and kids.

Take us with you.

"The Adventures of Harry Moon" book series for kids, focusing on becoming your best self with themes of friendship, anti-bullying, and responsibility at harrymoon.org.

Kevin Kelly, Fumee Claire, Mid-West Moving & Storage, Mike Dyer, Brendon Studzinski, and by these funders.

♪ So strong ♪ ♪ We are beautiful ♪ - Coming up on "The Whitney Reynolds Show"'s current season.

Are you still creating music?

- Absolutely, yeah.

I think the... Again, it all feeds back into the music.

How can I improve this?

But then how can I challenge myself to think outside the musical box?

And what does that look like?

What does it look like for a rapper to now design a space?

- My identity was rooted in being a wife and mother.

When that broke apart, it just felt like I lost my identity.

I didn't know who I was.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do.

- Well, and at this point, you said "Real Housewives" was not even a thing for you to even think about.

- I mean, Whitney, "Real Housewives" wasn't even a thing after I had filmed the sizzle reel.

I thought, I still can't do it.

I can pretend that I'm gonna be a housewife, but if they really cast me, I'm gonna have to walk away.

- I think we all, when we're young, at a very early age, we know what we wanna do, but it kinda gets beaten out of us or we talk ourselves out of it 'cause it just doesn't seem like a reality.

But why not you for that thing?

So just take little steps.

You don't have to jump from the ground floor to the top floor in one fell swoop.

No, you have to take the steps and take just a few steps every day.

- It was then that the reality really sunk in for me that the family was gone.

We were fractured.

The relationship with my father had started to crumble at that point.

And I was still trying to navigate what kinda relationship I could still have with him.

We really uncovered that my father had a double life.

Complete shock 'cause it shattered the image you had of who your father was and the relationship you thought you had with this man, this individual who had been a really big part of our lives.

- And I was like, I'm sick of the movies I've been making.

I need something different.

And so I called him up.

It lifted me out of that hole.

I think when people... People think, when they hear about this movie, oh, it's gonna be a sad movie about a guy with Parkinson's.

♪ You're strong ♪ - It's absolutely not that movie.

It's an uplifting story about this guy.

He drops out of high school, moves to LA.

He's like really short.

No one thinks he's gonna do anything.

He becomes the biggest movie star in America.

- This whole idea that we may not be, all of our information may not be safe.

And you know how we kinda go into it thinking that we're protected, and we're not.

And so this, I thought, was a really fun way to kind of scare people into knowing that their health information, that they might actually unwillingly be just giving it out to the internet.

- That what you wanna do, is like connect with everybody?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Listen, this is not a faith show.

We think of this as a historical fiction show- - Wow.

- Like other genre shows, you know?

- Right.

- It just so happens that one of the central characters in our show is the father of Christianity.

- For more information on today's program, visit whitneyreynolds.com.

Or get social with us, Facebook, "Whitney Reynolds Show," Twitter, @whitneyreynolds, or on TikTok and Instagram, @whitney-_reynolds.

- Our mommy.

(bright music)