47 pages • 1-hour read
The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss
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Themes
The Importance of Strong Parent-Child Relationships
The bond between a parent and child has a great impact on people’s lives. Lacking or losing a relationship with a parent due to death can be devastating for a young child, leading them to struggle with loneliness, insecurity, and fear into their adult years. Having a parental figure who is neglectful can also be troubling for a child. Not having strong parental figures can make the child see love and attention in ways that are dangerous. Both Vanderbilt and Cooper lost their fathers when they were young, making them feel unprotected. Vanderbilt uses the Mary Gordon quote “A fatherless girl thinks all things possible and nothing safe” to show how she felt without a father (23); she longed for a father like the one in the Andy Hardy movies and sought security in a strong man, hoping to be saved and loved by him. Cooper relates to this quote, having grown up as a fatherless boy from age 10. However, Cooper sought security by becoming independent, something Vanderbilt eventually did as well. Vanderbilt also lacked a strong relationship with her mother because of the latter’s neglect and narcissism. She feared becoming like her parents, a fear that persisted into her adult life when she became a mother. Afraid that she did not make the most of being Cooper and Carter’s mother, she wonders if things would have been better if Wyatt lived instead of her. Cooper disagrees and tells her that she always supported him and his brother and that he is where he is now because of her and his father.
Though Cooper’s father died when he was young, his father was able to give him the support system and value structure that would help him grow to become a successful, responsible, and caring man. Vanderbilt had also bonded with her sons, giving them the parent-child bond and family life she never had. However, she had trouble sharing her past and still struggled with explaining things to them and Wyatt. Her conversation with Cooper in the memoir led her to reveal her past in full and to reflect on her life candidly. This also allowed Cooper to open up to her about his own fears and his memories with his family. At the end of the memoir, Cooper and Vanderbilt’s relationship is closer and stronger, with both of them relying on each for strength and wisdom. Vanderbilt also got to experience a strong parent-child relationship with Dodo and Naney, who both gave love and attention to her and did what they could to help her and make her feel safe, despite their manipulations in the custody battle and Vanderbilt’s periods of estrangement from them.
The Pitfalls of Growing Up in a Wealthy Family
As a Vanderbilt, Gloria had many expectations put on her by her greedy and image-centered grandmother Naney. Naney wanted Vanderbilt to be raised American with her family and to marry into an equally respectable and powerful family as the Vanderbilts. This led to the public custody battle between Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt. The public nature of the trial was stressful and overwhelming for the then-10-year-old Vanderbilt, though Gertrude tried to shield her from it. Cooper sympathizes with his mother, telling her, “It’s sad to think of you at that age, surrounded by people with so many competing interests” and “You must have felt so scared with all that was happening” (64). Cooper earlier states that the demands of public life in a wealthy, powerful family like the Vanderbilts are one reason he is glad to be a Cooper. He explains that “the name Vanderbilt has history, baggage” (1). Though the world was already changing at the time of Vanderbilt’s childhood, Naney’s expectations were still significant. During Vanderbilt’s relationship with her high school boyfriend Geoffrey Jones, Naney angrily told her, “Listen to me, little one: you are a Vanderbilt and can never marry anyone with the name Jones” (83). This distressed Vanderbilt, and though Naney comforted her, their relationship was never the same.
Another pitfall of growing up in a wealthy family is that those born into one can quickly enter dangerous situations when they are young if they are not given a strong enough support system. Growing up with a wealthy family, paired with her time with her neglectful mother, led the then-17-year-old Vanderbilt to act in reckless and dangerous ways during the summer of 1941. She was permitted by her mother’s maid to drink wine despite her being underage, and without her mother’s guidance, she entered into some dangerous relationships with men who did not have her best interests in mind. These included Errol Flynn, who would later be accused of and put on trial for statutory rape against two other teenage girls the following year. Another pitfall of growing up in a wealthy family who provided little guidance for her was her entering an abusive relationship with Pat DeCicco, who allegedly murdered his wife, Thelma Todd, and worked for the mob. However, Vanderbilt was able to leave the marriage. Eventually, she began a successful career in art and design and entered a loving, stable marriage with Wyatt.
Healing From Loss
Cooper and Vanderbilt have had a lifelong journey of healing from loss. They both lost their fathers at a young age and had to learn to navigate the world and its dangers on their own. Reginald’s and Wyatt’s deaths made the dangers of the world all the more daunting for Vanderbilt and Cooper, respectively. Vanderbilt searched for a father figure in the men she dated and married until she met Wyatt, who helped her overcome much of the pain surrounding her childhood and who helped her heal by forming a parenting team for their sons. After Wyatt’s death, Vanderbilt held onto his wisdom and her kind spirit to raise their sons as a single mother while starting her design career. This was initially difficult due to her grief after losing him, but she had friends and her sons to help her heal, while Cooper worked on becoming independent and moving forward with his life. Dodo’s death was another painful loss for Vanderbilt, who loved her as a mother figure; she was overcome with guilt for not being at Dodo’s bedside in her last moments. She holds onto her memories of her through pictures and letters. In addition, Vanderbilt spent many years grieving the loss of the potential relationship she could have had with her mother, but after their reconciliation, she healed and made peace.
Carter Cooper’s suicide was a major loss that devastated both Vanderbilt and Cooper after they had already lost Wyatt. Losing her child sent Vanderbilt into a depression; she still has not completely healed from his death. She states that losing a child is “the greatest loss a human being can experience” and that it “demolishes you” (236). She and Cooper also dealt with their grief in different ways, as Cooper recalls her talking to people about what happened and gaining comfort in their company, while he needed to process his feelings alone and did not feel comfortable discussing them. They both realized that they needed to rely on each other to overcome their grief and move forward, and Vanderbilt, partially at Cooper’s insistence, stopped drinking. Their candor about their feelings and the way their losses affected them helped Cooper and Vanderbilt heal from Wyatt’s and Carter’s deaths, as did knowing that they would still experience good times even in times of sorrow. They began seeing movies after both deaths. In the memoir’s Epilogue, they go see a movie for Vanderbilt’s birthday, and Cooper thinks about how, in helping each other heal from their grief, they now know each other better.
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