If not, please keep a photograph of me somewhere nearby for your son or daughter to glance at now and then. Only tell them the good things about me, how much I loved you, the happy times we had together as a family. And that someday, they’ll grow up, and if they choose, make a family of their own, and be happy, too.
We are told the fable ends with a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But does it? I have no answer, except to say, I know the rainbow comes and goes, and really, isn’t that enough?
Your Adoring Mom
Epilogue
As my mom’s ninety-second birthday approached, we decided to conclude this conversation we had begun one year before. But a conversation like this never really ends once it has started. In the weeks since, we have spoken often and with a level of understanding that is deeper and truer than ever. Something fundamental changed between us this past year. I think of my mother differently, and I know she feels the same.
When I remember all those I have lost in my life, I think of all the questions I wish I had asked them, the things I wish I had told them. I will have no such regrets with my mom, and for that I am very thankful.
The other day she sent me the following e-mail:
Willa Cather wrote, “The heart of another is a dark forest, always no matter how close to one’s own.”
How close have our hearts come together in these pages? If nothing else, it can be said: Closer than before as light shines through.
I’m not quite sure what that last line means, but I like the way it sounds, and it has stuck in my head.
When I called her to see what she wanted to do for her ninety-second birthday, she told me she didn’t want to celebrate the occasion. At first I found this sad, but then I realized she no longer has any need to celebrate just one single day of the year. At ninety-two, each day is a kind of celebration, a chance to read a new book, begin a new painting, or simply reflect on all she’s lived through. When she wakes up, she takes a moment to make a wish, then gets out of bed and makes it come true.
The day of her birthday, I picked her up from her apartment and we did something we have not done together for quite a while, but something we often did in the past, in good times and bad.
We went to see a movie.
As I mentioned previously, after my father died, she and I used to go see movies together a lot. It was a way for us to be together and yet also forget for a few hours the sadness we felt.
As I grew older and got busier with school we saw movies together less and less, but after my brother killed himself we were faced with the dilemma of oncoming holidays and how we would get through them. Neither of us wanted to observe Thanksgiving or Christmas, or any other kind of day requiring a celebration. When you are grieving, the holidays, with their cards and constant commercials, remind you of the holes in your heart and all that you have lost.
So after my brother’s death, we once again returned to the movies, and that is how we got through holidays for several years. No tree on Christmas, no turkey on Thanksgiving, no exchange of presents—just the other’s company in a darkened theater waiting to be transported for a few hours to another world.
This trip to the movies on my mother’s ninety-second birthday was different, however. As we sat sharing some popcorn and chatting before the film began, I realized we were not avoiding a painful holiday; we were celebrating together all that we had been through.
During the film, I occasionally glanced over and saw her not just as a woman of ninety-two, but as a girl of thirteen watching a movie with Tootsie Eleanor, dreaming of what her adult life would one day be like.
I remembered that I had sat with her in that same theater when I was thirteen and we were still getting to know each other after my father’s sudden death, and it was the same theater we had come to the first Christmas after my brother died, both trying to imagine how we would get through the day.
After the movie ended, we headed slowly back to her apartment. We spoke a little about the film, but much of the way was spent in silence, walking down the street arm in arm. There was no need to talk.
I know her. She knows me.
She is my mother. I am her son.
The rainbow comes and goes.
About the Authors
ANDERSON COOPER is the anchor of Anderson Cooper 360° on CNN and a correspondent for CBS’s 60 Minutes. He has won numerous journalism awards and nine Emmys, and his first book, Dispatches from the Edge, was a number one New York Times bestseller. He lives in New York City.
GLORIA VANDERBILT is an American artist, writer, and designer. Her artwork can be found at GloriaVanderbiltfineart.com. She is the author of eight books and has been a regular contributor to the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Elle. She lives in New York City.
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Credits
COVER DESIGN BY ROBIN BILARDELLO
COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY BEN BAKER
Copyright
THE RAINBOW COMES AND GOES. Copyright © 2016 by Anderson Cooper. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cooper, Anderson. | Vanderbilt, Gloria, 1924- author.
Title: The rainbow comes and goes : a mother and son on life, love, and loss / Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt.
Description: First edition. | New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016000369| ISBN 9780062454942 (hardback) | ISBN 9780062454966 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062466730 (large print)
Subjects: LCSH: Cooper, Anderson. | Cooper, Anderson—Correspondence. | Television journalists—United States—Biography. | Vanderbilt, Gloria, 1924– | Vanderbilt, Gloria, 1924– Correspondence. | Celebrities—United States—Biography. | Mothers and sons—United States—Correspondence. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Editors, Journalists, Publishers. | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / General.
Classification: LCC PN4874.C683 A3 2016 | DDC 070.92—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016000369
EPub Edition APRIL 2016 ISBN 9780062454966
1617181920OV/RRD10987654321
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