Finding Sarah

by Sarah Ferguson

  Jane’s marriage to Alex started to go sideways and she separated from him in 1989. They became embroiled in a bitter custody dispute, which he won. The judge ruled that the children would be better protected on the farm than with their mother in Sydney because of all the media attention. Worse still, when Jane attempted to visit Seamus and Ayesha, she found them locked inside the farm gates, fearful that they’d be kidnapped.

  Jane remarried in 1994. Her husband was German-born Rainer Luedecke, a marketing consultant with whom she has a daughter, Heidi, age fifteen, who is at school in Sydney. She is a budding artist, and I bet that with her enormous heart and spirituality, she will become a leader of goodness. Jane and Rainer’s marriage lasted nine years.

  Jane went on to become a successful public relations consultant in Sydney. Her efficiency in business, however, never undermined her maternal commitment. In fact, if you asked either of us what was the most important thing we’ve done in our lives, we’d both say, “Having children.”

  We are devoted to each other’s children. I remember the time when Eugenie underwent an operation to have steel rods inserted into her spine. Doctors told me that my daughter could have ended up in a wheelchair had they not operated. I was shocked and scared. Few outside our family knew that the operation was more serious than a heart bypass or that the surgery, which was supposed to take two and a half hours, ended up taking more than eight hours. I stayed by my daughter’s bedside for nine days and nine nights. Jane stayed strong for both me and our father, who was also ill in the hospital. She went from one hospital to the other.

  I sometimes wish that Jane would tell me what toll my life has taken on her, but she does not. I know, however, that Jane has been forced to live, often uneasily and warily, in the harsh reflected glare of my endless torrent of criticism and scandal. At times, people turned their backs on her, and she began to lose all her work. Imagine how hard this would be for someone like Jane who works in the people business of public relations and communications. Today, thankfully, Jane is the sponsorship manager of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

  Jane fights on for me. In 2010, a magazine plastered this headline on its cover: “Fergie Sleeps with 3 Sheikhs for $500,000 on a Boat in the Mediterranean.” Jane led the charge to take this case to the most famous litigation attorney in Sydney. To our utter dismay, he told us there was nothing we could do, because they had more money and wanted more than anything to get me into the courtroom. We had to limp away from the lawyer, knowing that, yet again, I was accused of something I did not do, with no means to retaliate.

  Just as the bird depends on the shelter of its nest, we find protection in the love and support of our family. Jane has been one of my staunchest defenders, particularly when she met me in Los Angeles after the Fake Sheikh scandal. She will often launch into a passionate outburst on my behalf. She once told a reporter, “Sarah does an awful lot, but you only hear about the bad things that she does. Sarah doesn’t get recognized for all the good things she does. She has a wonderful heart and will help anyone. She probably does far too much for other people and doesn’t look after herself. She exhausts herself.”

  Jane and I are quite different in personality. She’s capable; I’m funny … except for when I’m surprisingly capable, and she’s inexplicably funny! When Jane becomes emotional and holds back tears, her top lip twitches. When she laughs, she throws her humble kind heart into every cackle, and her enthusiasm is childlike in every way. Jane stills sees life as magic.

  Both Jane and I are grateful for our stepmother, who gave our family a brother, Andrew, and two more beautiful sisters, Alice and Eliza. We adore them so much and are proud of everything they have accomplished in their lives. If there is such a thing as a perfect family, we have it, and I miss them all.

  Friends are wonderful, but there is nothing that can replace the feeling of being with your sister. Alice Walker was right when she said, “Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister?”

  No, it is not. She is your best friend, one that you can never get rid of. You can get mad at her or love her and even take her for granted, but she is always going to be there for you, forever.

  NUGGETS:

  • Blockages in relationships thicken when you refuse to release being right. Like an egg, the longer your refusal boils, the harder you get.

  • Today, approach a loved one with whom you’ve argued and apologize if you were wrong. And if they were wrong, then also apologize. Pouncing on your pride is a greater sign of strength than pounding on your chest.

  • Don’t let time or distance keep you from your loved ones.

  • Whenever you can, tell the ones you love that you love them.

  • Never let the sun go down on an argument. Always take the high ground of any argument, and having said your piece, practice the three Cs: Communication, Compromise, and Compassion.

  • Always be grateful for your family and friends.

  From: Jane

  To: Sarah

  Darling Stinks, with my love xxx

  Praise and Blame—Buddha:

  This has been going on through the ages:

  They criticize the silent ones.

  They criticize the talkative ones.

  They criticize the moderate ones.

  There is no one in the world who escapes criticism.

  There never was and never will be,

  Nor is there now,

  The wholly criticized

  Or the wholly approved.

  There is absolutely no way to avoid being criticized. Nobody gets through life described as totally wonderful.

  The question is: What do we do with criticism? Do we take it in, believe it, and develop self-loathing? Do we assume that a criticism of something we have done is a condemnation of who we are?

  Or can we filter criticism and keep it focused as perhaps valuable but private information? Can we look for the kernels of truth that might help us improve? Can we not immediately push criticism away, yet not accept it totally?

  And can we treat praise the same way, not instantly basking in our glory? Praise and shame are two sides of the same coin. If we are eager to accept praise, then we are equally vulnerable to feel the sting of blame.

  In both cases, we need to listen with caution and discernment. There are truths in what people say about us, good and bad, but let’s not ever believe that their words define us.

  9 Looking for Love

  The only problem I have is finding a man who would put up with me and all that entails, including the media interest.

  THE CROWD AT the party was three deep, aglow with the light of candles in squat yellow holders dancing on shallow pools of melted wax. I was there with my handsome Ex, who was my date, at the home of some very dear friends of ours in the London countryside. Everyone was drinking and talking. A riff of laughter rose from a nearby table. From across the room I spied a glossily handsome man, stunningly so, like the head shot of a film star. He must have been Italian, with his thick black hair and amused green eyes.

  “Damn, Sarah, not you too!” broke in a girlfriend of mine who had apparently also noticed the handsome Italian. He and I made eyes at each other until I, in my black cocktail dress tied at the waist with fancy cord, finally got up the nerve to go talk to him—or, should I say, let him talk to me. If you’re looking for a man, you’ve got to be a lady. If you’re too direct, it changes the game. I’ve scared off potential boyfriends in the past with my headstrong personality, or because they think I’m too close to Prince Andrew. In a word, my love life has been “diabolical.”

  During our conversation, I learned he was recently divorced, which piqued my interest even more. I could feel the twinkle of those eyes and the intimacy of that private smile. Yet the longer we chatted, the more I could feel that nothing would come of it. There are things in life that are not meant to be. I just knew it in my heart of hearts. But it was fun to flirt.

  I will tell you that in my heart there is truly
an absence of romance, of having someone to love, love me back, and the intimacy. Yes, I do love Andrew deeply. When we were married, ours was a true love match. But why was love not enough?

  Yes, it was love. It is now. I believe it was meant to be like this. I know I have to go my own path, because I am a free spirit. And he has to go his path. I think we both realize that we were very naive, but we loved each other very much. That’s why the love is still there. We’re growing again now. Our love bond is extremely strong—but in its right place for us.

  Beatrice and Eugenie are certainly happy with the way things are. They always say, “No, we don’t want you to get back together, because you get on so well.” Andrew and I have brought them up, joint parenting, and we are so secure in our friendship that they know that and are safe with it. They have peace because we both are free to come and go. We are completely and utterly in harmony. I always say our relationship is similar to what Kahlil Gibran says in The Prophet: “And stand together yet not too near together: / For the pillars of the temple stand apart, / And the oak tree and cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

  Andrew calls ours the happiest divorced family in the world. There are many reasons for this; all I can say is the highs and lows we’ve shared are proof that ex-husbands and wives can preserve what was right about their relationship. A mutual condition of our divorce was that we would share equally in parenting our girls. We may disagree occasionally, but by and large we have made a success of living together by being apart.

  What of our separate lives? There are tough moments, to be sure. Since the collapse of our marriage, Andrew has dated a string of beautiful women. And, yes, I’ve felt jealous. I’m only human that way. I confess that I have never found anyone to replace Andrew in my affections.

  Andrew is a great man and a thoroughly good person. He’s a model boy. He doesn’t drink, goes to bed early, and gets up at 8:30 AM. The girls and I have full admiration for him because he keeps such discipline. I’m the mischievous one. On weekends I’ll stay in bed as long as I can.

  My daughters and I are so close, yet it makes me realize how much I missed having a mother around as a young girl. Now is the time in my daughters’ lives when they need to know their mother is strong and there. That’s why I talk to my children about everything.

  For the longest time Beatrice wanted a boyfriend. I told her she mustn’t fret or worry if other people have boyfriends. Her time would come. One day she had a wobbly and said she didn’t want to be grown up, not that day, so she just sat with me and had a hug. It’s okay to be a little girl, I told her. I’m middle-aged and I still feel like a little girl.

  When my girls lobbied to date and have boyfriends, I listened before expressing any reservations, and I shared their excitement at making an emotional connection with boys. I let them know that it’s normal to have romantic and sexual feelings. I told them that things like kissing and cuddling and having a boyfriend are fun, but that they had to think first about what is best for them. Some girls feel that being romantic and physical is the only way to be with a boy. As I said to Beatrice and Eugenie, there’s a very good reason why there’s “friend” in the word “boyfriend.” How you help your child handle that initial crush may help set patterns for romantic relationships throughout her life.

  After a few not-quite-right boyfriends, Beatrice’s luck finally turned in a big way when she met Dave Clark. If I were to describe an ideal boyfriend for Beatrice, it would be him. He’s fun, supportive, loving—and cute as can be, and so is Jack. He and Eugenie are in a relationship and exploring what it’s like to have someone special. She met him on the slopes of Verbier, where we were helping Andrew celebrate his fiftieth birthday. Jack was holidaying with a group of friends. He and Eugenie started dating and the relationship became quite serious.

  Not long ago, I watched Eugenie from my window as she frolicked with Jack. I suppose he is her first true love, and her happiness exuded through the windowpane. Eugenie still managed, in her beautiful way, to stop and extract herself from Jack’s amorous clutches to pop upstairs to tell me that she loved me.

  Eugenie turned twenty-one in March 2011. On the day of her birthday, I traveled by train to Newcastle to take her out for a surprise lunch. Jack couldn’t be there, so I brought him with me in the form of an image of his face on Eugenie’s birthday cake.

  As for finding love, I remain idealistic. Deep inside, I am a romantic. And I’ve had plenty of boyfriends, from racecar drivers to business tycoons to counts—many of whom caused me painful public embarrassment. Even so, I believe there is a special someone still out there for me. I really do. I believe the very instant I set eyes on him, I will know. Perhaps it is on this journey that I am freeing up space in my life to have a partner.

  If you asked me what I look for in a man, I’d tell you this: Someone who is good-looking and easy on the eyes. Someone with a good sense of humor, who doesn’t mind the cameras on me. Someone who believes in old-fashioned chivalry, is confident, sophisticated, intelligent, and athletic. Someone who is positive and supportive of my goals. Someone who has integrity, honesty, and is family oriented. Someone who is a friend, too, and who knows me better than I know myself. Someone I can’t bear to be apart from. And, oh, he has to pass the test of our Caramels, our four little Norfolk terriers, and, of course, Andrew and the girls.

  As I look over this list, the résumé of my perfect mate, I realize I have just described Andrew.

  DIARY ENTRY

  July 25, 2010

  I long to be 40 again. I wished I’d had Demi Moore around to ask how she managed to lure Ashton Kutcher.

  I am having massive surges of why had I let my marriage go, why had I failed at keeping the amazing love that Andrew and I had together?

  I feel a barrage of abuse and self-punishment coming on. My inner voice screamed: You could never even get an Ashton Kutcher, even if you did know the secret code.

  10 Mind Chatter

  Life is full of experiences, positive and negative, and learning comes from all of them.

  I HAD BEEN FIGHTING self-hatred so long that I could fight no more. I treated myself like a piece of antique china that might, at any moment, crumble into dust. I felt disembodied, hollowed out, in some horrible way unreal to myself.

  I looked fine from the outside, usually, a woman coming into her life. I had just started a new production company, was part of a worldwide network of children’s charities, had friends in the United States and wonderful family back home in London. But the life I really lived took place inside my head: It buzzed and hissed with ceaseless, vicious criticism.

  I’d berate myself ceaselessly. Why can’t I be tall, blond, and good-looking? Why am I so fat and revolting? Why, why, why?

  I tried to quiet this roar by stacking up achievements—if I get this book published, this new project, maybe people will get that I’m really okay—and with fervent self-affirmations that I wrote down in my diary. This would work for a few hours, until something small—a slightly self-conscious exchange with someone, a memory of some imperfection—would undo it all, the self-hate roaring back into my brain and body. I felt hounded, overpowered, nearly unstitched by it.

  The mind starts out like a brilliant, precious gemstone. But over a lifetime, that shiny gem gets dirty, dusty, coated over by conditioned thoughts and the experiences we have. We lose touch with our inner brilliance—the light of the inner self—and can’t even remember that it’s there. What I needed was to clean my mind and whatever was blocking my own inner light.

  To begin that process, I would work with psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw. My hope was that I’d find out why my mistakes had turned me into such a bad-luck magnet—and what I could do about it. I knew that I could not live the rest of my life repeating the self-destructive patterns of the past.

  I am not a stranger to therapy. Many years ago, one of my girls needed help. Beatrice was having trouble reading in first grade and all the signs pointed to dyslexia. Then testing confirmed i
t and we took all the right steps so she could deal with it. After finding out I was the mother of a child with learning disabilities, I spent a great deal of time getting up to speed on everything to do with dyslexia.

  Interestingly, I, too, had difficulty learning letters and numbers as a child. I decided to read up on learning disabilities because little was known about them back when I was in primary school. I was astonished to discover that as a child I matched many of the criteria associated with two learning disabilities: dyscalculia, problems with math concepts and problems, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is characterized by distractibility and difficulties with staying on task.

  I had myself evaluated by experts who confirmed that I am ADHD and moderately impaired by dyscalculia. Why is this relevant to a fifty-one-year-old woman? It matters a lot, because one does not outgrow these conditions. Without proper intervention people develop their own coping systems, some of which may be effective and others not at all. I believe these issues have had a profound effect on me throughout my life.

  It is a known fact that many adults with ADHD have difficulty managing time, money, people, and projects. Certainly I do. Dyscalculia can make it hard to measure and quantify ordinary things such as money and time. I used to be chronically late for appointments because I’d schedule too many without regard for how long each would take or the travel time from one meeting to the next. Money has always slipped through my fingers, and I now realize I’ve never had an internal gauge for how much I spent.