Hepburn Forever
Hepburn, the Daughter
She told us how she felt pangs of emptiness
at the sight of other children in their fathers' arms,
how she wished he were there so she could be like the others.
As a child, she couldn't let go of that profound
and natural desire. This is also why,
after her divorces to both my father
and my brother Luca's father,
she did all she could to ensure
that we continued to enjoy a complete relationship with both.
That was my mother's world: feelings and emotions.
Yet her feelings and emotions were never quite peaceful.
Someone once wrote that feelings cause us to act,
whereas emotions cause us to react.
Well, she has feelings for all of us,
yet she was never able to let go her emotions or
find peace with herself. She was truly scared on some level.
The abandonment of her father was a wound
that never truly healed. She never really trusted
that love would stay.
Hepburn, the Wife
Although too young to remember my parents together,
I was told of romantic evenings,
of candle light and soft music.
Anyway, no one is to blame. There is only sadness
when two souls cannot merge. The snarling void
left by her father's absence bore an equal share
of the responsibility in the failure of both her marriages.
My mother loved her husbands completely,
and she hung on to the marriage for as long as she could.
What she didn't do was to speak up and be heard
when she needed to, and she didn't put up healthy boundaries.
Exhausted by an authoritarian mother,
she wished for a world where caring and love came freely,
but she had chosen two men who had to learn to cope with
their feelings on their own.
Hepburn, the Mother
I remember school days, cramming for exams for
which she probably fretted more than I did.
She would test me before bed and again in the morning,
waking up with the sort of sleepy head only adults enjoy.
I remember her elation at good grades,
her support and positiveness for the “not so good ones.”
I remember sleepovers on weekends,
when we would chat with the lights out.
We would talk about feelings and plans
and people and things, but in that way
that is specific to that darkness,
like two souls suspended.
I close my eyes and remember, through the nose,
her scent: powdery, elegant, safe, strong,
the scent of unconditional love.
I look down and see her delicate hands,
their skin so thin I can faintly see their veins,
her nails round, soft, and clear.
They caressed me, they walked me to school,
and I held on to them when I was scared.
Oh, how I miss them!
Hepburn's Dream
My mother's dream was always to be a prima ballerina.
No matter how hard she had trained her most important
and formative years had passed
and could not be recaptured.
The war had been tough on her,
and poor nutrition had impaired
some of her muscular growth and development.
Besides, she was too tall for any male dancer of the era.
My mother simply couldn't compete with the other dancers
who had received proper training as well as
proper sustenance during the war years.
The war had stolen her dream.
She remembered going back to her room that day
and “just wanting to die.”
The dream that had kept her hope alive
all those years had just vanished.
Hepburn, the Actress
My mother's acting career was a second choice,
a default choice. But the rules were the same as in ballet:
hard work, discipline and professionalism.
“Less is more” was at the core
of my mother's basic “look” philosophy.
Style is a word we often use,
for a multitude of purposes.
In the case of my mother it was the extension
of an inner beauty reinforced by a life of discipline,
respect for the other, and hope in humanity.
She didn't go with the trends,
didn't reinvent herself every season.
She loved fashion but kept it as a tool
to compliment her look.
When she appeared, her clothes didn't scream out,
“Look at me!” but, “This is me...no better than you.”
And she truly believed in that.
She didn't see herself as anything special or unusual,
which is why she worked so hard
and was always pleasant and professional.
Her style was only an extension of who she was,
the person we all admired, because down deep we knew
that what we saw was not just clever packaging
but an honest and 100 percent genuine human being.