#missing father

Audrey Hepburn on vacation in Italy, 1968.

-Audrey Hepburn became one of the most famous Hollywood stars of the 50s and 60s but her childhood was marked with trauma. The daughter of a Dutch noblewoman and a Bohemia-born British father, her earliest years were overshadowed by the outbreak of fascism and World War II. Hepburn’s father disappeared when she was six years old. Initially, her mother, Ella van Heemstra, would brush off any inquiries into her absent father’s whereabouts by saying he’d gone off on a fishing trip.

While her formative experiences provided her with an inner fortitude and drive for acceptance, she longed for a father figure throughout her life. She unfortunately never received the love or validation from her father that she yearned for, despite tracking him down in 1962 and receiving complete indifference from him. Due to this deep seated heartbreak, these photographs captured of Audrey fishing all throughout her life, become all the more poignant.

Jonathan Majors in Lovecraft Country (2020) Sundown

Episode 1

Atticus Freeman meets up with his friend Letitia and his Uncle George to embark on a road trip across 1950s Jim Crow America in search of his missing father.

I want to thank you all for the support and even some of the tough love. I don’t have it in me to answer asks, I’m sorry for that.

I’m having to do some deep and heavy thinking lately. Hope that you all understand.

For ten years, I sabotaged all of my relationships. I wanted to feel the pain to feel alive. I wanted my father to save me. I wanted him to tell me how to act with men. I wanted him to tell me that I was beautiful and he was proud of me. I wanted him to look at me. I wanted so many things from my father that I did not get in the way I expected.

I realized that my resentment towards him was only widening the gap between me and all men. I kept paying the same price. Will I ever heal from my father’s absence? To figure it out, I need to continue on my path. I need to feel love and give love again. I need to trust. I need to open my heart. I need to respect men.

Men are the guides of this world, while women carry life. Women give birth. Men lead our steps. When we respect their fate, their entanglements, their doubts, their fears, we accept them and so love will grow. The beauty of love lies in self-surrender, in the vulnerability of understanding that love is both tenuous and enduring. The uncertainty creates the urgency to love deeper and stronger.

The game of love can be vibrant and painful, all at the same time. Is it worth it? Yes. Men serve women as women serve men. It’s an exchange. It’s the pure essence of our roles.