Free The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son On Life, Love, and Loss by Anderson Cooper, Gloria Vanderbilt

better time than we did when we actually were. Sounds weird, but that’s how it was.
    I recently rediscovered the Andy Hardy movies of the 1930s, starring a teenage Mickey Rooney. I had forgotten how these movies captivated me in my adolescence. Andy Hardyhad a mom and a dad, Judge Jim Hardy. They lived in a house surrounded by a picket fence.
    Mesmerized by the daily lives of this family, I discovered that this was what it could be like and what I wanted.
    I loved best the scenes when Andy, seeking advice and reassurance, would knock on his dad’s door. His father was always available, never too preoccupied with serious matters to have heart-to-heart talks with his son. He gave him sage advice, solving his problems with the wisdom of ultimate authority. I didn’t realize it then, but these films held a secret message for me: if Dad is there, everything is safe.
    I no longer puzzle over why, throughout my life, I have left men who loved me and whom I loved in return. Nothing ever felt safe, and though it was unfair of me, it felt wiser to abandon them before they abandoned me.
    As I told you before, I was born with a hole in my heart. Sometimes a shock of wind whistles through it. It can never be completely filled.
    Why am I telling you this? Because I’m hoping it may in some measure help you understand the roots from which my failings come, and the perseverance and strength it has taken to get me through ninety-one years to where I am now, standing unafraid, free and clear.
    All those movies I saw provided my education. I believed that what appeared on the screen was how it was going tobe when I grew up, and I couldn’t wait for the reality of it to begin. When it finally did, it was quite a shock to discover it wasn’t like that. No, not at all.
    Back at Auntie Ger’s, I started listening to “Uncle Don’s” radio program, about Little Orphan Annie, who had been adopted by a billionaire she called Daddy Warbucks. Immediately I identified with Annie. If she survived, so could I. Auntie Ger was my Daddy Warbucks.
    At fourteen, though, out went Orphan Annie and in galloped Jo March from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. I loved the book, and when Katharine Hepburn portrayed Jo in the movie, I was over the moon. That was who I wanted to be, and I wasn’t alone. All my schoolmates and cousins craved to be Jo, and we wouldn’t settle for any of Jo’s siblings—not even Amy, the pretty one—so we finally agreed to stop squabbling and we all started calling ourselves Jo.
    Later, when Sidney Lumet and I were married, he directed Katharine Hepburn in Long Day’s Journey into Night. I never told him why I didn’t visit the set. I didn’t want to meet her, not even after the movie had wrapped and she came to visit our apartment.
    W hy didn’t you want to meet her? She had been so important to you, and probably would have loved to hear the story.
    Because, in a secret place inside me, the unworthy, fat girl of thirteen still had the grip of a tiger.
    When Hepburn arrived, I was in my studio, which was next to the elevator. I could hear her voice as Sidney greeted her at the front door, but I didn’t come out, and she left without our meeting. I felt unworthy at thirty-eight to shake Katharine Hepburn’s hand. Unworthy at ninety-one? Indeed, no. Now I would feel worthy to give her a big hug, but it’s taken me a long time to get here, and I congratulate myself on finally making it.
    Y our mom had so many opportunities to forge a relationship with you; Gertrude did as well. If only they could have made more of an effort, or at least tried to put themselves in your shoes. Your mom could have taken you to the movies herself and out for a meal afterward. It would have been such an easy thing to do, such a simple gesture that could have brought you closer together.
    After Daddy’s death, you and I started going to the movies often. It was one of my favorite things to do with you, and I looked forward to it all week. I