A Beauty's Heartbreaking Departure

Right off the bat I’ll admit that I was neither a fan of, nor an expert on fallen actress Natasha Richardson.

Of course, I knew of Natasha Richardson. Just like so many celebrities, her name did inspire recognition, the kind one has in passing when you hear it mentioned. Natasha Richardson died yesterday at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, following her family’s decision to remove the life support sustaining her body’s physical functions. She had been declared brain dead and not likely to survive.

It had been only two days; this passed Monday, since the actress took what at first appeared to be a harmless spill on a bunny slope, while taking a private skiing lesson at a mountain resort in Quebec. The resort’s instructor and staff said Natasha did not hit anything; there was no blood or other visible injury. The mountains were not hard or icy. In fact, they say, she giggled with her sons at her own clumsiness, refused medical treatment at first and even got down the rest of the mountain on her own two feet. But a mere hour, or so later, she would complain of a headache - one she would never recover from.

In spite of my limited knowledge of Natasha Richardson’s life and career, I remain besieged by a sense of sadness whose roots run deeper than just knowing of her sudden departure. I am human, after all, and anyone’s sudden and tragic death brings sadness to me. As with anyone and anything today, if I want to know more, I am able to google the woman for every bit of information out there about her life. The 45-year-old mother of two young sons and wife of actor Liam Neeson was entirely too young, too vibrant, too talented and beautiful and much too full of life to go so quickly and so tragically. The media have released a statement from her family on the death and refer to Neeson and his sons and family as “devastated and shocked”. Well, what other way could they possibly be at such a terrible time?

Images of Natasha Richardson, now pouring through all of the media outlets, come across to me as being that of a stunning and sweet woman. Her features are chiseled and precise, yet simultaneously soft and classic. Her large eyes convey kindness and love. She struck me as someone who entered a room with a bright, spectacular luminosity spotlighting her every move.

Natasha Richardson’s dynastically impressive lineage crossed generations and the acting gene passed strong and pulsating to Natasha. Her mother Vanessa Redgrave, sister Joley Richardson, father, the late Tony Richardson and maternal grandparents were all recognized British royalty in theater, film and the arts. Not surprisingly, Natasha, her sister, uncle and others, followed the family business maintaining an impressive place along the world’s stages.

Perhaps it is not simply the knowledge of her death that lingers with me, but the tremendous loss of her two sons, Michael (13) and Daniel (12). At their young ages, to be left without a mother, is just so infinitely sad and heartbreaking. It reminds me of how I felt when the princes William and Harry were left without their mother Princess Diana. I remembered how they had to follow, in view of all of England, behind the casket carrying their mother’s body, through the streets of London. However, the difference between then and now is that now I have also lost my own mother and so I relate, though quite reluctantly, to the Neeson boys. The memory of the pain of losing my mom is still so pronounced and raw that I can step into the shoes of these boys more so than their predecessors.

I try to imagine, to understand how much more terrifying it has to be when your mom dies and you’re not yet an adult. With me, I was just shy of my 36^th birthday – a month almost to the day – when my mom passed away. I recall wanting to shake her and say: “Wait! Please, I am not ready, yet! I am still a little girl. I am not old enough for you to go! There is still so much more I need and want to learn from you!” I remember the desperate need I had to hold on to her, to be greedy and keep her, despite the suffering she was going through with her health. I remember thinking I had not done enough, been good enough, and been kind enough to her for all she had done for me. I remember thinking all of this because no matter what your age, when your mom dies, you revert to the frightened, tiny child you were when one day you lost sight of her and thought you were lost. That is what I imagine Michael and Daniel Neeson are going through right now - that indescribable, unrefined, unwelcome and sickening feeling of being abandoned by a parent and left to fend for yourself.

For me, more than anything else, it is Natasha Richardson’s children who are present in my mind. I understand, having witnessed my own father crumble at losing my mother, that a partnership in love and marriage is strong and the pain of the loss of it is a devastating blow. However, crude as it will sound, once a person is widowed, it is possible to one-day recover enough to marry again, or to find someone else. Yet, unlike the relationship of man and wife, the relationship of parent to child is unique. You can never, no matter what you do, how much you pray and how badly you want it, reinvent another mother to replace the one you lost. And even if your surviving parent remarries and you get a step-parent, this step-parent is never one of your own choosing and thus you’re left to either form a kind of bond with the new person, or choose not to and continue to mourn your loss all your life.

Poor Natasha Richardson! She went on vacation with her sons – perhaps to stay close to her husband who was filming in Canada - and she never came home. Her poor mother, Vanessa! No parent should ever have to bury a child! Poor Liam Neeson who appeared proud and thrilled to pieces in every photograph where his beautiful wife was by his side. And finally, poor Michael and Daniel who will never again celebrate a Mother’s Day without a sea of tears, who will never again feel her understanding warmth, who will always feel the absence of her in their lives and who will forever feel cheated by the years of life given to them of which their mother never got to participate in. How much has my life changed and moved since my mom died? How much more will come?

There is a crippling feeling when you’re forced to acknowledged that life is fleeting – that it is a mere speck of time in all of eternity. It is a truism the likes of which we would all like to forget, or ignore. To face it, accept it or welcome it, is to admit defeat, somehow. To admit that we have been conquered in our silly quest to sustain life indefinitely, while we sit around almost prideful in our lack of appreciation for it, when we have it. At life’s end, whether that end comes too soon, or not soon enough is irrelevant, we are left gasping for air, trying and failing to understand how precious it was and how huge the void that now resides in its place.

I am going to bypass discussing the many accolades and awards of Natasha Richardson’s life and career. Certainly, everyone has read about her talents and reviewed her acting prowess. Those who got to see her work – on stage, television of film - will most likely agree that she was a rare gem of the arts. There is no need for me to push my way into the bunch. Instead, I will leave it here, with mention of this beautiful mother who would never knowingly abandon her children. I will state that she was probably a woman who hoped for a long and happy life to watch her sons grow up to be men and lead their own lives. She was probably a woman who looked adoringly at her husband and expected years and years ahead to keep staring up at him with her big, pretty eyes. She was probably a woman who hoped to one day lift and spin her grandchildren around and who, along with Liam, would spoil them rotten. She was probably a woman with an apparent and celebrated pride for her husband, sons and family. She was probably a woman who appeared to the entire world to have attained all of the elements of a happy life. Then, one unexpected day in March of 2009, this beautiful woman, daughter, sister, wife and mother lost it all in the blink of an eye and all that remains are the tears of those who loved her.