The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss

“Vanderbilt is a big name to carry, and I’ve always been glad I didn’t have to. I like being a Cooper. It’s less cumbersome, less likely to produce an awkward pause in the conversation when I’m introduced. Let’s face it, the name Vanderbilt has history, baggage.”

This quote establishes the pressure and The Pitfalls of Growing Up in a Wealthy Family that Gloria Vanderbilt had to deal with in her early life as a Vanderbilt. It alludes to the historical importance of the Vanderbilt family as one of the most powerful families in the country. It also shows Cooper’s preference for simplicity in his life, something that defines his attitudes toward money, lifestyles, and organization expressed later in the memoir.

1.  “91 years ago on this day, I was born.

I recall a note from my Aunt Gertrude, received on a birthday long ago.

‘Just think, today you are 17 whole years old!’ she wrote.

Well today—I am 91 whole years old—a hell of a lot wiser, but somewhere still 17.

What is the answer?

What is the secret?

Is there one?”

Vanderbilt’s first email in her and her son’s conversation, on her 91st birthday, details how she has trouble seeing herself as her age. This shows Vanderbilt’s sentimentality, as she remembers her 17th birthday with her aunt and considers how she has changed since that day. She also begins to contemplate the meaning and purpose of the world as she approaches her final years and wonders what else she has to learn before she goes.

“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.

I hope what follows will encourage you to think about your own relationships and perhaps help you start a new kind of conversation with someone you love.

After all, if not now, when?”

Cooper addresses the audience directly, inviting them to share a conversation with someone they love like he did with his mother, which changed their relationship and allowed him to get to know her better. Amid his mother’s health problems, he is becoming aware that he does not have much time left and realizes that nobody knows when it will be too late to connect more with their loved ones.