Stephanie March

Stephanie March Instagram – Thank you, thank you @thesarahhepolaexperience She sure loved you too.
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I’m lucky to have a great mom, but I’ve borrowed many moms over the years, women who were role models, advice dispensaries, fashion inspiration, travel sages, providers of cookies/pizza and (when I was old enough) wine/margaritas and (when I stopped drinking) seltzer/tea, caregivers and conversationalists alike. This morning, a conversation with the dear @mpagotabeardlikeabillygoat got me thinking about Laura Derby, once Laura March, once Laura Irwin, mother to @marchstephanie and @laudorecharlotte, who are like cool sisters to me, even if distance and busy-ness keeps us from seeing each other much. Laura died in 2017, at 72, which was way too soon for those of us who knew her and loved her, which turns out to be the same thing. Laura was a force, with one of the all-time-great laughs. She was cute as a bug from the get-go & she lived an extraordinary life, some of which I only learned after she died, like how she lived in the Philippines back in the Seventies (#2). I knew her as glamorous, wise, worldly, and kind, a very Texas combo of sweet and soft at once. Her daughters Charlotte (#3, left) and Stephanie (right) are the same. When Laura got sick, I was lucky enough to spend a fair bit of time with her. I would go to her place once a week and read short stories about travel out loud. She would close her eyes and we’d go to Africa (Hemingway), the Old South (Flannery O’Connor), New York (Martha Gellhorn). Oh, we had a time. I took this picture of her bed (#5) when we gathered for her memorial, because I knew I’d want the memory. She died not long after Stephanie’s wedding (#6) to Dan Benton, and it’s pretty astonishing to look at that last photo and know she doesn’t have much time. Whatever was going on inside her, Laura was a champion of keeping it to herself. That quality isn’t celebrated so much in an era of TMI, but what I can tell you about her is that she taught me a lot about grace and beauty. I miss her today, and I know her daughters miss her always. I hope they don’t mind my sharing this story. I just like the idea of her memory and her beauty shining on. | Posted on 25/Mar/2023 03:07:58