I watched the Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper talk last night on CNN. It was good. It was about 50/50 political and personal. The personal discussion was so touching. I don’t think I had known that Stephen Colbert’s father and two of his brothers were killed in a plane crash when he was a boy. It was interesting hearing how he felt that loss has affected him throughout his life. And for Anderson Cooper, who also lost his father at a young age, the loss of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, is so recent that his pain is still raw, and he allowed us to see that. It was poignant to watch him tear up and to describe his appreciation when condolences from others include their own stories. He said he welcomes that, that he wants to hear stories from others because it makes him feel less alone. That touched me so much.
A few years ago I read the book Anderson wrote with his mother, called “The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love and Loss.” It’s a wonderful book. Anderson stated in the book that there was so much he hadn’t known about his mother until they started communicating through emails just a few years ago. I went back and looked at some of the lines I had highlighted when I read the book, and I’d like to share some of them, because reading them again after a few years makes them even more meaningful to me, especially after watching the program last night.
“She has never allowed herself to develop a protective layer of thick skin. She’s chosen to remain vulnerable, open to new experiences and possibilities, and because of that, she is the most youthful person I know.” (Anderson, speaking of his mother)
“I know now that it’s never too late to change the relationship you have with someone important in your life: a parent, a child, a lover, a friend. All it takes is a willingness to be honest and to shed your old skin, to let go of the long-standing assumptions and slights you still cling to.”
“It’s hard to calculate just how destructive other people’s opinions can be.”
“So much of our adult lives is influenced by what happened to us as children. It is all still there, the memories, the feelings, and fears, stored just beneath the surface in the hidden crannies of our cortex.”
“Inside, however, in our core, past the aches, pains and creaking joints of age, youth still resides. It is here in this present moment, right now, alive and waiting.”
“My greatest regret is not making more of an effort to be closer to Carter, not talking with him about feelings or experiences we may have shared. Perhaps it would have made a difference in what happened to him. I always imagined we would be closer as adults, once we had lives of our own. I thought there was plenty of time.” (Gloria speaking of her first-born son Carter, who took his own life at age 23)
“For me the list of regrets is so long I wouldn’t know where to begin or to end.”
“Don’t edit your thoughts, feelings, and values to please someone else; express them as they truly are.”
” I regret the times I said no when the answer should have been yes, and vice versa.”
“Money can give you independence, but once you start chasing it, there will never be enough. No amount will make you feel whole or safe.”
“We are not meant always to be happy, and who would want to be? Happiness would become meaningless if it were a constant state. The searching, that’s what I think life is really all about.” (Ironically, Stephen Colbert said almost the same thing in his discussion with Anderson.)
“‘The rainbow comes and goes,’ Wordsworth wrote, and boy, was he right.”
I highlighted many more passages, but these stood out to me after watching the show last night. I highly recommend the book. Peace, y’all
House of Black and Blue 