Vanderbilt was a legendary fashion designer and artist. The great-granddaughter of railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, she lived a life marked by terrible tragedies and triumphs. In her apartment, Cooper discovered secret diaries and fascinating memorabilia. In a box, he found a stack of telegrams from Frank Sinatra that had been sent to his mother when they were dating in the 1950s. “It’s exactly what you’d expect love telegrams from Frank Sinatra to sound like,” Cooper said. Cooper’s father Wyatt, a Mississippi writer, died suddenly in 1978 at age 50 after a heart attack, and 10 years later, Cooper’s brother Carter committed suicide, killing himself in front of Gloria Vanderbilt when he was 23. Before she died, Vanderbilt left hidden notes for Cooper stuck to some items. Perhaps most chilling was the note taped to a box containing the blouse and skirt Vanderbilt was wearing when Carter died. Going through his mother’s belongings, Cooper also had to go through his father’s and brother’s things, which had been stored since their deaths. He said the process left him feeling overwhelmed and he began reaching out to others, recording his conversations with them about grief and loss and what to do with the things his mother left behind.
“I was surprised how alone I felt as the last surviving member of my family,” Cooper said, “and I found that talking to others who had been through grief and spoke the language of loss was life-changing.” Cooper said he was motivated to deal with his grief in large part by his two sons, Wyatt and Sebastian. “I didn’t want to convey to them the pain and sadness that I felt for a large part of my life,” he added. “I’m not going to pretend that I don’t feel a terrible sense of loss anymore, far from it, but I think about that grief and sadness differently now, and I really hope this podcast helps others.” CNN’s All There Is with Anderson Cooper will debut new episodes on Wednesdays and be available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Megan Marcus is the executive producer of CNN Audio.