Dear Cary: My Life With Cary Grant (31 page)

with the I'll-come-with-you throng . . .

but that's not the key to harmony, goin' along

with the rest of the group you see

who will label and stamp and press you out

till we're all like each other,

without our own man, understand?

If we just be what we are, we're all a star!

So if I love you like I love me,

then our problems are over, don't you see?

So do whatever you have to do,

always holding that in your point of view

and our great big world will finally be

what it's always been that we couldn't see

because we are free!

That's the way it's intended to be.

I continued to listen but all I could hear was silence. There was nothing more. Well, that was strange. Very strange indeed.

I wondered where those words, those thoughts, had come from. They hadn't come from me. I was just the one screaming for help. I was just the one taking them down.
Today is Liberation Day
. . .

Something was going on here.

Something big. Something powerful. Something much bigger than me. It wasn't just the words I'd heard or the thoughts, but the overwhelming feeling of peace that came entwined with them. And well-being. And Love.

Whoa!
That's
what I felt:
Love
. That's what had enveloped me, consoled me, and suddenly strengthened me.
Love
. I felt like a lamp finally plugged into an electrical socket, and the light was within me and all around me. I was surrounded by it.

I sat on my log all night in that blissful solitude. As I watched the dawn bloom, I slowly realized that nothing—not all the forces of the world gathered together . . . not a person, place, thing, or circumstance . . . nothing, absolutely
nothing—
had the power to stop that dawn from dawning. Why? Because
that
was the dawn's purpose—
to dawn.
To spread its fingers of light over the advent of a fresh new day.

And I knew as well that it was a fresh new day for me.

I hadn't called anyone for help—or lit up a cigarette or a joint; I hadn't reached for a drink or a pill or a man or sex. I'd stopped trying to figure things out for myself. I'd simply asked for help. Could it really be that easy?

I went inside and looked up the word “liberate” in the dictionary.

Liberate:
To set free. Release from imprisonment. To liberate the mind.

Today, indeed, was Liberation Day.

In a flood of excitement, I called Lily and told her about my experience. I was so excited that the words just poured out of me in an exuberant rush.

“That's
it,
” she said. “You heard it.”

“Heard what?” I asked.

“The still small voice of truth. That's it. And it
has
set you free. Dyan, once you've opened up to the truth, the truth will stay with you. And this is only the beginning.”

Wow,
I thought.
If this is just the beginning . . .

By this point, Jennifer was waking up and I heard her call me. I went to her room, took her into my arms, and held her tight, then made her breakfast and took her to school. Throughout the day, I warmed myself in that cocoon of pure love, a love that wasn't going anywhere. I could move away from
it,
but love wasn't ever going to move away from
me
.

As it turned out, I didn't lose my home, but for a long time I had neither a job nor money. But I had peace. And it was real.

I spent the next months in much solitude. Apart from being a mother, my time was spent in study that steadily led me from faith to understanding. I knew that what happened on that Malibu beach wasn't just a one-time experience—that the warmth and peace that had revealed itself to me was a constant reality, not a fleeting thing that would be here today and gone tomorrow. Therefore, it must be available to everyone all the time. I understood that it was a matter of awareness on my part . . . a conscious awareness and a
choice
.

Happiness or sadness? Love or hate? Faith or fear? Intelligence or ignorance?

I chose to be happy. I chose to be smart. I chose to believe when everything around me was screaming not to. Most important, I chose to love.

Love love love.

Not just in March but in April, too.

I realized that life was more than something just to get through, that it was a treasure—every moment of it. That it was a gift. A precious, beautiful gift. I became a better mother, a better friend . . . a better
me
. And because
I
changed,
my life
changed. There were still temptations with men and undesirable roles, but I learned how to say no with grace and yes with gratitude.

Now when the road gets rocky, I know exactly what to do. I
try
—and “try” is the key word—to be gentle with
me
when those feelings of fear start to pull me into their undertow. But no matter what, I stop and then reach inside for that power called LOVE . . . not little love . . . not the limited love that comes from Dyan, but the big LOVE that comes from a Higher Power—the same power that held me as a happy hostage that extraordinary night on the beach.

Of course, sometimes I slip back into thinking that I'm running the universe, but not for long. I've learned to be abidingly patient with myself when those moments of anxiety or frustration and panic set in.

How do I feel now? I feel as good as I felt in my twenties. No, that's a lie. I feel better than I felt in my twenties or my thirties or my forties or my fifties.

I'm alive. I'm complete. I'm whole. I'm free. And safe.

Finally, it feels good to be me.

Dear Cary

I've been waiting for this moment for what seems a lifetime. And finally, once again, I'm in a place where I can completely open my heart to you. It's been so long since I've been able to do that, and it's taken many years of revisiting our time together for me to get there.

It's been like going into an old house that has been shut up tight for many, many years but finding things just as they were when I left. I opened all the doors where the memories were stored—went down to the basement and up to the attic, looked inside the closets and dug in the garden. It was as if I could see everything that happened between us back then . . . but this time around, I was seeing it all through different eyes.

There is so much I want to share with you, Cary. So many things I've needed to say that I couldn't talk about then because I just didn't understand them. I couldn't piece together the puzzle of the hurts, the disappointments, the shame of it all. But with the passage of time have come clarity, understanding, forgiveness, and grace. Now so many things that I thought would never make sense seem perfectly clear, and I can finally write you the letter I've wanted to write for so long.

From where I'm sitting now, I have a clear view from the ocean to the Los Angeles skyline. My town house faces La Cienega Boulevard, and now, in the afterglow of dusk, I vividly remember a distinguished, handsome man and a spunky young woman walking hand in hand down the boulevard. You remember the night I'm thinking of—I
know
you do! We'd been seeing each other for six or seven months, and after another exquisite dinner we took a long, leisurely walk down the boulevard. It was well after midnight and the city was unusually quiet.

We came to a corner and decided to cross the street. And halfway across, there in the middle of the boulevard, you stopped cold, looked deep into my eyes, and asked, “Do you know how I feel about you, Dyan?”

“I'm not sure I do,” I replied.

Right then, you went into a free fall, toppling like a redwood and landing facedown on the cold pavement. Then you turned your head ever so slowly, looked up at me, and said, “Head over heels!
That's
how I feel about you, Dyan! Head over heels!”

That made me go weak at the knees. But before I could respond, you sprang to your feet, picked me up in your arms, and carried me to the sidewalk. Still holding me in your arms, you kissed me. And then you kissed me again.

It was a perfect moment, and probably the most romantic moment of my life.

So in love was I. So in love were we.

So what happened, Cary? What happened to that great love of ours? It was real. It was right. It was
real
right. Then it went wrong. Real wrong.

The falling in love was easy. But the living in love was another matter. It always is, isn't it?

I know there are two sides to every story. For my part, I was so afraid of losing you that I lost you. Then I lost
me
in trying so hard not to lose
you
. Crazy stuff . . . born of my immaturity and just plain lack of confidence. I honestly think I expected
you
to make
me
happy . . . an impossible task for any man. But after all, you were “Cary Grant.” What I've come to understand, though, is that you were far more than a “Cary Grant.” You were flesh and blood: a warm, intelligent, and oftentimes gentle man, with a heart so big it could embrace the world. Yet, you had problems to work through just like anyone else. So in order to help you sort through those problems, I let go of who I was. I did that in order to become what I thought you needed or wanted me to be. Not fair to you (because it was false) and not fair to me (because it shut me down).

Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and it took me a long time and a lot of work to heal the guilt I felt after we parted. No, I didn't leave for lack of love. I left because one of us
had
to leave—because each of us thought that we could find ultimate happiness in each other. We both came up short and started blaming each other for what we couldn't fulfill in ourselves. If I'd only stayed true to who I really was, we might have made it. However, that's just what happens when two imperfect people try to find heaven in each other.

For your part, you let me into your carefully guarded heart. You trusted me enough to have a baby with me. And then . . .

You panicked.

You even got mad at yourself for allowing it to happen. From this distance, it's not hard to understand why. We've all got our wounds, but the ones inflicted from
your
childhood were beyond what most could ever imagine.

But now is not then. Over time, in learning a bit more about love and in learning to forgive myself, and in learning to forgive you, I've found the real deal again. I found it when I came to understand that
I
had to practice unconditional love, patience, and acceptance first before I could expect that from any partner.
I
had to become the person that I wanted to fall in love with.

I asked myself for many years if the love we had was real. For a long time I wasn't sure about that, but now I have no doubt. It was absolutely real. And out of that reality came our beautiful Jennifer.

You'll be happy to know that Jennifer has turned out to be more than any two parents could ever hope for—and she's exactly the “highly evolved, kindhearted woman” you imagined she might become. Best of all, she's an amazing mother. Yes, my dear, we are the proud grandparents of Cary Benjamin. He's a bundle of pure, ecstatic joy. It's so curious: when he's concentrating hard, he sticks his little tongue out and bites on it, exactly like you used to do. Where did he get that? Not from Jennifer, whom you'd be so proud of—she's so present, so beautiful, inside
and
out. No, that was never one of her habits; he got it from you. Like I said . . .
curious
.

Isn't it amazing, Cary, that after all this time, your light still shines so brightly in my heart? And not just for me, but for many, many others. You're as beloved now as you ever were, and rightly so. You helped generations to laugh, cry, and cheer as we muddled our way through this thing called life, and along the way, you made grace, charm, and wit seem attainable. And even though Elsie and Elias weren't there for you as a child, you have millions of people who would adopt you on the spot.

We said it many times, Cary:
we were both seekers
. And the thing that you and I were so desperately searching for was that inexhaustible source of love and that lasting inner peace. Cary, I
finally
found it!

I found it in the stillness of the night on the beach in Malibu.

I found it because I asked.

It was just that easy. I asked. And I received. And I feel certain that by now, you've found it, too. (Of course, just as with falling in love, finding it was one thing and living in it is quite another. It's work, to be sure, but it's the nicest work of all if you can get it, and the best part is,
everybody
can!)

Just the other night, for the first time in many years, I dreamed about you. I was standing on top of the world, enjoying the view. And then I felt a pair of arms wrap around me from behind and somehow I knew they belonged to you. I turned around and we were face-to-face. I was so happy to see you.

You led me through a door and into a room, a cozy room with a fireplace and a piano. From a kitchen somewhere in the house, I could smell the aroma of cooking—I think it was bubble and squeak, one of your favorites. You whistled, and I heard the cheerful sound of a dog barking.

And there was Bangs, leaping up into my arms.

You looked at me, smiled with that incredible sparkle in your eyes, and we gazed at each other for a long while. I had such a strong feeling of peace and bliss; all the wounds were healed, all the confusion had blown away like wisps of smoke, all of the blame had dissolved into understanding.

“All is forgiven,” you stated simply.

“All is forgiven,” I replied, though it needed no confirmation.

And that's how I feel: totally at peace with the past, and so grateful for the love we had, imperfect as it may have been, and blessed by the lessons I've learned from the experience.

Cary, I wish I could take hold of your hand right now and look in your eyes as I tell you this: thank you for letting me be such a big part of your life. Thank you for choosing me to be the mother of our child. Thank you for the romance of a lifetime, and for teaching me the difference between romance and love.

It has taken many years (and oddly, as time rolls on, I don't feel older—I just feel newer), but I wanted you to finally hear my heart.

I wish I could have loved you then the way I've learned to love now.

P.S. I never knew if you figured out that the chicken I served you in my apartment that night was from La Scala . . . Did you?