Nora

She was always rather thin. But that was a fact of heredity. In childhood, she had been quite shy, and extremely self-conscious. Not that anyone ever gave her reason to be. Her parents were loving. However, as a middle child in a family of six children, she never seemed to get enough attention--reassurance. Unbeknownst to others, she had always felt lonely--a bit lost and different. Nora was different. She was moody and distant. She was very sensitive. She was a dreamer.

As she grew into adolescence, she was full of self doubts. So, she experimented with different hairstyles. She followed the fashion trends. She constantly read beauty and fashion magazines. She was determined to be beautiful, for every teenage girl longs to be beautiful. She began to diet. At sixteen, she'd begun to look like the models she'd read about. By this time, she was also beginning to turn the heads of guys. Nora found this exciting. Her shyness began to fade.

She decided to continue to better herself. She went to a modeling agency. At eighteen, she became a star model. Within a year after that, she had become an international success--an international sensation. But, she never wore her fame like a crown. She was always uneasy with her success. It was as though, if she let her guard down, she'd be discovered a fraud. She had never learned a most basic lesson--to believe in oneself. Though her face had graced a hundred magazine covers, she could still look at that face in the mirror, and see flaws. She could still look at her willowy and lovely body, and see fat.

Never mind that she was worshipped by men, and envied by women. How one sees oneself is the final analysis. She was determined to stay on top. But, her determination was fueled by desperation, rather than mere ambition.

Who was this Nora Carsten? A young woman with a great need to control. Someone whose self esteem was unfortunately low. A person who had always judged herself too harshly, and had always been her own chief critic. She felt that she must control her life, down to the smallest detail. She needed to cling to her success. She had become perfectionist. And who is perfect? Who can live up to every ideal? Nora tried.

When she met Kevin MacArthur, an extremely successful and handsome interior designer, she was at the height of her fame. He was doing work on her Paris apartment. He asked her out, and she accepted. They became lovers. For the first time in her life, Nora was deeply in love. Kevin considered himself the world's luckiest man. Though their schedules were demanding, they were together as often as they could be. They planned to marry someday, and have children.

One day, Nora got a phone call from her distraught mother, who still lived in New York, the place where she'd grown up. She was in tears. Her sister, Barbara, whom everyone called "Babe," because she was the youngest in the family, had died suddenly in an accident. She'd been struck by a hit and run driver. She had never regained consciousness. Nora was heartbroken. Everyone had loved Babe. She was so bubbly and full of fun and happiness. She was only sixteen. Nora called Kevin, and immediately he was at her side. He said that he would fly to New York with her for the funeral. He took care of making their flight reservations. He held her hand on the flight, and whispered words of comfort.

When they arrived, Karen Carsten, Nora's mother, answered the door. Her eyes were red from crying, and her father, Robert, seemed to have aged overnight. They hugged Nora tightly, as if afraid to let her go. Her siblings talked in low voices, once in a while one of them breaking into tears. "Hey, look who's here!" said her brother, Harry. "Nice to see you," he said, giving her a hug, "but I wish it could have been under happy circumstances."

"Hello Harry," she said. "I missed you all." And she introduced them all to Kevin, whom they had all heard about, but never met. They liked him. They all sat down and remembered Babe, and planned the funeral arrangements. Through it all, they gave each other strength, and were a comfort to one another. Nora stayed with her family as long as she could, and then returned to Paris with Kevin. She had been so grateful for his support. She loved him so.

The recent tragedy had left Nora with an even greater need to control. She had felt so powerless through it all--so helpless. It was as helpless as she'd ever felt. She would have done anything to prevent the tragedy that had robbed Babe of her youth, her hopes and dreams. In her powerlessness and helplessness and grief, she sought to control her body. Almost without realizing it herself, she became a victim of the eating disorder, anorexia nervosa.

As in most cases, it began as harmless dieting. Slowly, it grew obsessive. Slowly, it grew until it overshadowed everything else in her life. She began skipping meals, convinced that she must remain rail thin to retain the position in the industry that she had achieved.

For a while, it worked. She was enormously popular. Young girls all over the world wanted to look like her, be like her. Aspiring young fashion models looked to her as their role model. But then her eyes began to wear shadows, which she covered with makeup. She began to look gaunt. She lacked energy. Yet, the pace of her life remained as hectic as ever. She headed into her inevitable collapse. One irony of many ironies in her life, is that she was walking down the runway when it happened. She fainted. There was a gasp of shock from the crowd. An ambulance was called. The Press had wind of it before she was taken away by the paramedics. She was diagnosed with exhaustion and undernourishment. The doctor gave her a stern warning that unless she slackened her pace, and would take the time to make sure she ate nourishing meals, she would have health problems. Nora smiled a brilliant smile, and reassured the doctor that she would follow his orders.

"Sweetheart, you must take better care of yourself!" Kevin told her. "You need a vacation," he said. So, together they went on a romantic Mediterranean cruise, which was indeed, restful. She returned refreshed and rejuvenated. But she still had her eating disorder, which no one yet suspected. Food had become her enemy--a sign of weakness and failure. Nora did eat, but less and less. She was slowly fading away. It was not immediately evident, since models are very thin.

One day, after having been absent from her for a couple of weeks, Kevin realized with a shock that Nora seemed frail--nearly skeletal! It had been two years since the onset of her disease. Two years of being at the brink of starvation. "Darling, darling, what have you done to yourself?" Kevin now cried. "You're anorexic! You must see a doctor!" Nora refused.

"Darling, there is nothing the matter with me. I'm just a little run down. And I am on a diet. We models must always watch what we eat. But, perhaps I overdid it. I will eat a little more." She believed in her own words, though none of what she said was true. Kevin was taken in by her strong denial and her seeming sincerity. Nora was a sensible woman, he felt.

Nora's disease continued for three more years. Finally, Eloise Brown at the modeling agency, said to her, "Nora, you are sick. You cannot work in this condition. You're obviously anorexic. See a doctor."

But Nora, like most people with a habit that they cannot control, was still in denial. Her obsession continued.

One day, her mother phoned from New York to say that she was flying in for a visit. Kevin drove to pick up her mother at the airport. Nora had not told anyone the true reason for her sudden leave of absence from modeling. She had taken to wearing clothes that completely covered her body, so as to hide her condition. In this way, she had even managed to fool Kevin for quite some time.

"I've missed you, Nora," her mother said as she and Kevin came in. They hugged. They had dinner (Nora only picked at hers) and talked far into the night. Kevin had not stayed long after dinner. He had explained that he had an early appointment.

Next day, Nora and her mother slept late. Nora awoke first, feeling dizzy and sick. She went to take a bath, and in her distraction, left the bathroom door ajar. Her mother, arising shortly after Nora did, and not realizing that the bathroom was occupied, entered it. She stared at her daughter. Her mouth fell open in shock. What she saw made her frantic. "You're wasting away," she said, starting to cry. She went to her daughter and held her. Then she rushed to call an ambulance.

On the way to the hospital, she asked herself how she could not have known. She saw vividly now the gaunt features and dark encircled eyes that she'd put down as fatigue last night. And yet, her daughter was starving to death! Kevin asked himself the same sort of questions as he rushed to her side. In the past year, he had often fought with Nora to eat more, to rest, to take better care of herself. He had even bought vitamins for her. But, Kevin had never realized that Nora's very life was in danger! He had not been able to see much of her lately, because of business demands. But, still he should have known that she was dangerously thin.

Nora was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where she was fed by tube until she had gained the critical amount of weight that would put her life out of danger. She was given vitamins. Then they began to work on the mental aspects of the disease. The most important thing she learned was that her eating disorder was a symptom of unresolved mental conflicts. As her mind grew healthier, she began to eat on her own.

Of course, the news of the hospitalization of Nora Carsten went around the world. It made the public more aware of the disease, anorexia nervosa. She received cards, letters, packages and flowers from all over the world. Her family visited her. Her mother was delighted to see her getting better. Kevin was happy and vastly relieved.

Six months after entering the hospital, Nora Carsten, wearing dark glasses and looking as fresh as a spring flower, was released. A crowd cheered her as she stepped into her limousine. She was everyone's heroine, because she'd had the courage to fight a life threatening disease and win.

"Darling, I want to marry you," Kevin said to Nora months later. She still showed no traces of a recurrence of the disease. Nora was permanently cured, for now she understood.

"Yes, Kevin," she said. "I love you. There is no one I'd rather spend my life with."

Their engagement was announced, and the wedding date was set for June twenty-third. It seemed the day would never arrive, but it finally did come. Nora, dressed beautifully in white satin and lace, and accompanied by family members, arrived in a white car, decorated with flowers and streamers. Outside the nearly full church, small groups of people stood here and there.

Blissfully happy and smiling radiantly, Nora waved to the guests gathered on the lawn of the huge church. Then she started to go up the walk to the church entrance, seemed to stumble, fell, and lay still. To the anguish and dismay of the onlookers, she lay so still! Nora Carsten had died.

The cause was later discovered to be a heart attack, brought on by years of self deprivation, which had weakened her heart. Waves of shock and sorrow went around the world. At twenty-five, Nora Carsten had been a legend in her own time. She had set fashion trends that were destined to become classics. She had inspired young girls and given hope to many victims of anorexia nervosa.

Her funeral was held on the Saturday following her wedding date. It was a sad affair. Her burial was on Sunday. As Kevin, wearing dark glasses, rode in the procession to the cemetary, he knew the time had come to say goodbye. Like a peaceful brook, the words of parting flowed through his mind:

"Your fans will remember you, and I will always love you, Nora dear. Goodbye, my heart, goodbye. There will never be another like you. It is because you were special. You were the hopes, the dream of many, but especially mine. You were my heart's treasure."

And thus, as the procession wound its way through the sunshine, with an aching heart, her lover said goodbye to the most beautiful woman in the world.

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