The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane von Furstenberg

Author:Diane von Furstenberg [Furstenberg, Diane von]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Business & Economics, Fashion & Style, Nonfiction, Personal Memoirs, Retail
ISBN: 9781451651577
Google: vYnqAQAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2014-10-28T04:00:00+00:00

On the way back from Belgium, we landed in Gander, Canada, to refuel. It had been raining and the plane sat between two complete rainbows. Tatiana told me to make a wish. I wished to be cured. There were another dozen daily treatments left to go, a dryer throat, and more burns. Deepak kept on calling, my mother, Barry, and the children were nearby, and I was counting the days. It was the year of the World Cup. Brazil won, and I did, too.

I went back to Deepak’s center in California after the treatments to recuperate. That was the worst week of all. As my doctor had predicted, the discomfort increased. I was burned inside and out from the radiation and exhausted. The adrenaline that had sustained me during treatment was gone because I knew the treatments were over. I locked myself in my room and moaned. The only thing I forced myself to do was fifty laps in the pool, repeating my sutras.

At the end of the week, a call came in the middle of the night, morning in Brussels. My father had passed away. My brother and my mother were on the phone, crying. My eyes stayed dry; my father was gone forever and there was nothing I could do to change that. On the plane from La Jolla, I picked up Alexandre in Las Vegas and we flew to New York and then on to Belgium. Tatiana met us at the Brussels airport—she had come from Portugal. We went straight to my father’s apartment, the apartment I grew up in. His room seemed smaller than I remembered; the coffin seemed small, too. I sat by it. On the side table there was a lit candle and photos of my father’s parents and brother. I felt helpless but peaceful, thankful for the love my father had given me. We buried him in a lovely cemetery, surrounded by trees and stillness. The children left that afternoon. I needed a break. I decided to go to Berlin for a long weekend and meet Mark, who was there editing his movie Victory. My brother thought I was too weak to travel, but I wanted to feel life and love, so I went. I rested in my hotel room during the day while Mark was working, but at night we walked around the streets of the newly united Berlin and loved it.

A few days later, I went back to Brussels to tidy up my father’s home. Like me, he had kept everything: diaries, letters, photographs . . . memory lane in all its splendor. I missed his presence, his smell, but in the mirror I could see him—our features are so similar. Before leaving, I took his favorite watch, a gold Omega, his crocodile wallet, and his two Russian glasses with silver holders in which he drank his tea every day.

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