the rainbow comes and goes

8/18/2019 The Rainbow Comes And Goes

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Introduction

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y mother comes from a vanished world, a

place and a time that no longer exist. I

have always thought of her

as a visitor stranded here; an emissary from a

distant star that burned out long ago.

Her name is Gloria Vanderbilt. When I was

younger I used to try to hide that fact, not

because I was ashamed of her

far from it

but because I wanted people to get to !now

me before they learned that I was her son.

Vanderbilt is a big name to carry, and I"ve

always been glad I didn"t have to. I li!e being

a #ooper. It"s less cumbersome,

less li!ely to

produce an aw!ward pause in the

conversation when I"m introduced. $et"s face

%


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it, the name Vanderbilt has history, baggage.

&ven if you don"t !now the details of my



a nderson cooperand

Gloria Vanderbilt

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introduction

mom"s extraordinary story, her name comes

with a whole set of expectations and

assumptions about what she must be li!e.

'he reality of her life, however, is not what

you"d imagine.

%y mom has been famous for longerthan (ust about anyone else alive today.

Her birth made headlines, and for better or

worse, she"s been in the public eye ever

since. Her successes and failures have

played out on a very brightly lit stage, and

she has lived many di)erent lives; she has

been an actress, an artist, a designer, and

a writer; she"s made for* tunes, lost them,

and made them bac! again. +he has sur*

vived abuse, the loss of her parents, the

death of a spouse, the suicide of a son, and

countless other traumas and betrayals that

might have defeated someone without her

relentless de* termination.

'hough she is a survivor, she has none of

the toughness that word usually carries

with it. +he is the strongest person I !now,

but tough, she is not. +he has never

allowed herself to develop a protective

layer of thic! s!in. +he"s chosen to re*main vulnerable, open to new experiences



and possibilities, and because of that, she

is the most youthful person I !now. %y

mom is now ninety*two, but she has never

loo!ed her age and she has rarely felt it,

either. eople often say about someone that

age, -+he"s as sharp as ever, but my mom

is actually sharper than ever. +he sees her

past in perspective.

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a nderson cooperand

Gloria Vanderbilt

'he little things that once seemed

important to her no lon* ger are. +he has

clarity about her life that I am only begin*

ning to have about mine.

/t the beginning of 0123, several wee!s

before her ninety* first birthday, my motherdeveloped a respiratory infection she

couldn"t get rid of, and she became

seriously ill for the first time in her life.

+he didn"t tell me how bad she felt, but as I

was boarding a plane to cover a story

overseas, I called her to let her !now I was

leaving, waiting until the last min* ute as

usual because I never want her to worry.

When she pic!ed up the phone,

immediately I !new something was wrong.

Her breath was short, and she could barely

spea!.

I wish I could tell you I canceled my trip

and rushed to her side, but I didn"t. I"m not

sure if the idea she could be very ill even

occurred to me; or perhaps it did, acting on

it would have been (ust too inconvenient

and I didn"t want to thin! about it. I was

heading o) on an assignment, and my team

was already in the air. It was too late to

bac! out.



+hortly after I left, she was rushed to the

hospital, though I didn"t find this out until I

had returned, and by then she was already

bac! home.

4or months afterward she was plagued

with asthma and a continued respiratory

infection. /t times she was unsteady on her

feet. 'he loss of agility was di)icult for her,

and there were many days when she didn"t

get out of bed. +everal of her

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introduction

close friends had recently died, and she was

feeling her age for the first time.

-I"d li!e to have several more years left,

she told me. -'here are still things I"d li!e to

create, and I"m very curious to see how it all

turns out. What"s going to happen next5 /s her ninety*first birthday neared, I began

to thin! about our relationship6 the way it

was when I was a child and how it was now. I

started to wonder if we were as close as we

could be.

'he deaths of my father and brother had

left us alone with each other, and we

navigated the losses as best we could, each

in our own way. %y father died in 2789,

when I was ten; and my brother, #arter,

!illed himself in 2799, when I was twenty*

one, so my mom is the last person left from

my im* mediate family, the last person alive

who was close to me when I was a child.

We have never had what would be

described as a conven* tional relationship.

%y mom wasn"t the !ind of parent you

would go to for practical advice about

school or wor!. What she does !now about

are hard*earned truths, the !ind of things you discover only by living an epic life :lled



with love and loss, tragedies and triumphs,

big dreams and deep heartaches.

When I was growing up, though, my

mom rarely tal!ed about her life. Her past

was always something of a mys* tery. Her

parents and grandparents died before I

was

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a nderson cooperand

Gloria Vanderbilt

born, and I !new little about the

tumultuous events of her childhood, or of

the years before she met my fa* ther, the

events that shaped the person she had

become. &ven as an adult, I found there

was still much I didn"t !now about herexperiences she"d had, lessons she"d learned

that she hadn"t passed on. In many cases,

it was because I hadn"t as!ed. 'here was

also much she didn"t !now about me. When

we"re young we all waste so much time

being reserved or embarrassed with our

parents,

resenting them or wishing they

and we were entirely dif* ferent people.

'his changes when we become adults,

but we don"t often explore new ways of

tal!ing and conversing, and we put o)

discussing complex issues or raising

di)icult uestions. We thin! we"ll do it one

day, in the future, but life gets in the way,

and then it"s too late.

I didn"t want there to be anything left

unsaid between my mother and me, so on

her ninety*first birthday I decided to start a

new !ind of conversation with her, a

conversation about her life.



experiences that I didn"t !now about or

fully understand.

We started the conversation through e*mail

and con* tinued it for most of the following

year. %y mom had only started to use e*mail

recently. /t first her notes were one or

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introduction

two lines long, but as she became more

comfortable typing, she began sending me

very detailed ones. /s you will see in the

pages ahead, her memories are remar!ably

intimate and deeply personal, revealing

things to me she never said face* to*face.'he first e*mail she sent me was on the

morning of her birthday.

91 years ago on this day, I was born.

I recall a note from my Aunt Gertrude,

received on a birthday long ago.

“ust thin!, today you are 1" whole years old#$ she wrote.%ell, today&I am 91 whole years old&a

hell of a lot wiser, but somewhere still 1".

%hat is the

answer' %hat

is the secret' Is

there one'

'hat e*mail and its three uestions

started the conversa* tion that ended up

changing our relationship, bringing us

closer than either of us had ever thought

possible.

It"s the !ind of conversation I thin! many

parents and their grown children would li!eto have, and it has made this past year the



most valuable of my life. =y brea!ing down

the walls of silence that existed between us,

I have

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a nderson cooperand

Gloria Vanderbilt

come to understand my mom and myself in

ways I never imagined.

I !now now that it"s never too late to

change the relation* ship you have with

someone important in your life6 a par* ent, a

child, a lover, a friend. /ll it ta!es is awillingness to be honest and to shed your

old s!in, to let go of the long* standing

assumptions and slights you still cling to.

I hope what follows will encourage you to

thin! about your own relationships and

perhaps help you start a new !ind of

conversation with someone you love.

/fter all, if not now, when5


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the rainbow comes and goes

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