Saturday night, I came across the post of Anderson Cooper announcing the birth of his second son, Sebastian. I played the video of him explaining how he and his former partner and now best friend were parenting both sons and the children's surnames would both be Maisani-Cooper. They are a family. He described how he felt the presence of his deceased mother, father and brother while raising toddler Wyatt Cooper with Ben. He then read a quote from his father, Wyatt Cooper which made me weep.
All of it made me weep.
(Thank you to the man on Twitter who painstakingly captured the words on video in written form.)
Here are Wyatt Cooper's amazingly loving and accurate words.
"Life itself is brief. And yet each life encloses all eternity. We are, all of us separately and together engaged on the same tough journey. Each of us taste its joys and sorrows. Each of us gets by as best as we can. And we must whenever possible reach out to each other tentatively to touch with our hands, with our eyes, and with our hearts. We must wish for each other love and laughter, good thoughts and happy days. We must go rejoicing in the blessings of this world. Chief of which is the mystery, the majesty, the magic that is life."
For some reason, ever since Anderson Cooper started writing and documenting his and his mother's life and their relationship journey, I was mesmerized. First in the book, "The Rainbow Comes and Goes" and then in a documentary, "Nothing Left Unsaid." Anderson has been through tremendous loss, and examined it and come through it looking for light and love. Gloria Vanderbilt led an astounding life trying to fill in the gaps for missing loved ones. A dad that died when she was one and a mother who was not able to connect with her. She and Anderson shared their grief over losing his dad, Wyatt, all too soon and then ten years later, his brother, Carter. They shared how their relationship worked and didn't work. I love a family who speaks their truth and tries to work things out together. Relationships are messy and there has to be open, honest and mature communication. If you don't have that, it's really hard to make it work for both parties.
I celebrate Anderson and his best friend choosing to raise a family together and it really resonates deeply for me. Family can be who you make it to be. It can be those who reach out and touch our hands, eyes and hearts. I have tried to connect on a deeper level with family and it just hasn't worked. It's devastating to come to that conclusion yet I have learned that God ( the Divine One, the Trinity, the Christ Consciousness or Universe) will bring people and situations into my life that will fill my longing for attachment and connection in a loving and kind way. It will not look like what I expected but if I can let go, forgive and move on, my heart will be touched by love when I least expect it.
Today, on Valentine's Day, a manufactured day with confusing origins, I will still celebrate LOVE.
The kind of love that listens to my deepest concerns and I listen to theirs. A love that is kind, responsive, mature and patient. It's not perfect but it shows up. That's my version of First Corinthians 13. A veil is lifted and I only understand in part, but the part, the mystery that I see is so generous and overwhelming, I can't do anything but figure out how to lean into it again and again.
I am so very thankful for the loves in my life. The unit that I created: my husband and daughters, friends who are soul sisters, family, and others who cross my path in all kinds of ways. And of course, the four legged sweethearts cannot be left out!
