The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the kitchen, a comforting scent that usually signaled the start of a hectic workday. But yesterday, it was different. Yesterday, the kitchen held a quiet magic, a warmth that transcended the simple act of brewing coffee.
On the kitchen table, amidst the usual clutter of keys and mail, sat a neatly packed lunch bag. Beside it, a folded piece of paper, its edges slightly crumpled. A note.
My heart skipped a beat as I recognized the familiar, slightly slanted handwriting. It was Colton’s. Our 10-year-old foster son.
We’d opened our home to fostering after years of battling infertility. The empty rooms of our house had echoed with a longing that no amount of well-meaning advice could fill. We wanted to give a child a chance, a safe haven, a loving family.
Colton had arrived a year ago, a whirlwind of boundless energy and insatiable curiosity. He was a dreamer, a boy who found wonder in the simplest things. He loved riding his bike, exploring the neighborhood, and most of all, he loved helping in the kitchen, his eyes sparkling with the ambition of a future chef.
The note was simple, written in his characteristic, slightly misspelled script: “Lunch for you. Have a good day. Love Colton.”
And inside the lunch bag, a perfectly assembled sandwich, wrapped in wax paper, a small bag of chips, and a bruised but perfectly ripe apple.
It wasn’t just a sandwich. It wasn’t just a note. It was a testament to the bond we’d built, a tangible expression of the love that had blossomed between us.
For months, I’d felt a shift within me, a growing certainty that Colton wasn’t just a foster child, he was our son. The way he’d seamlessly woven himself into our lives, the way he’d filled the empty spaces in our hearts, it was undeniable.
That note, that simple gesture of love, solidified it. It was a quiet affirmation of what I already knew.
I shared the note with my wife, Sarah, her eyes welling up with tears as she read it. We looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between us. It was time.
Today, we made the decision official. We’re going to adopt Colton.
The paperwork is already underway, the legal process a mere formality compared to the emotional journey we’ve already undertaken. We’re planning a surprise for him, a small celebration to mark this momentous occasion.
We’ve decorated his room with balloons and streamers, a banner proclaiming “Welcome to your forever home!” We’ve baked his favorite chocolate chip cookies, and Sarah has even prepared a special dinner, a culinary masterpiece that would make any aspiring chef proud.
Tonight, when Colton returns from school, we’ll gather around the kitchen table, the same table where I found his note, and we’ll tell him the news.
I imagine his eyes widening with disbelief, then filling with tears of joy. I imagine him running into our arms, his small frame shaking with emotion.
And I know, with absolute certainty, that this is the best decision we’ve ever made. We’re not just giving Colton a home; he’s giving us a family, a love that’s richer and more profound than we ever imagined.
Vertigo Star Kim Novak Is Spending Her 91st Birthday with ‘Friends and Lots of Fudge’ (Exclusive)
Tuesday marks the 91st birthday for Kim Novak, the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film Vertigo, who walked away from Hollywood over five decades ago.
“She’s spending her birthday having a picnic on her property with friends and lots of fudge,” says her longtime manager and close friend Sue Cameron.
Life is sweet these days for Novak, who lives quietly on the Oregon coast, surrounded by her beloved horses.
In honor of her 91st birthday, read on for an interview from 2021 in which Novak shared why she left Hollywood and found her true self.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(564x0:566x2):format(webp)/kim-novak-91-birthday-2-021324-db00ece17a544a71adef40001f6fabd0.jpg)
Over 50 years ago, Kim Novak, the enigmatic star of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, walked away from Hollywood. The woman who had once been the No. 1 box office draw in the world put her belongings in a van and drove north, first to Carmel, California and then two decades later to Oregon, to live her life as an artist.
“I had to leave to survive,” she tells PEOPLE. “It was a survival issue.”
“I lost a sense of who I truly was and what I stood for,” says Novak in a rare interview to talk about her new book, Kim Novak : Her Art and Life. published by the Butler Museum of American Art.
“I fought all the time back in Hollywood to keep my identity so you do whatever you have to do to hold on to who you are and what you stand for,” she explains.
“I’ve never done one of those tell-all books that they wanted me to do for so long, and I thought this is the kind of book I’d like to do,” she says of her art book. “Actually, I had written my autobiography and it was almost complete but I had a house fire and the house burned down and I made no copies. I just couldn’t go through it again because I had spent so much time. But it was okay because it was a catharsis just to do it.”
After starring in Picnic (1955) with William Holden, The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Pal Joey (1957), opposite Frank Sinatra, and Vertigo, with Jimmy Stewart, Novak was at the height of her career but still under the control of the studio.
As she writes in her book’s introduction, “I was both dazzled and disturbed to see me being packaged as a Hollywood sex symbol. However, I did win my fight over identity. I wouldn’t allow [Columbia Pictures chief] Harry Cohn to take my bohemian roots away by denying me my family name. Novak. I stood my ground and won my first major battle.”
Cohn wanted her to change her name to Kit Marlowe, telling her that audiences would be turned off by her Eastern European roots. She refused. In the late ’50s, she defied him again when she began dating singer Sammy Davis Jr. against his wishes and she fought to live her life as an independent woman.
“There was constant pressure to be seen and not heard,” writes Novak, “especially if you had a pretty face.”
“In Hollywood a lot of people assume who you are, because of the character you play, but also just because of who they expect you to be, how they expect you to dress,” she says. “It influences you because if you’re in some gorgeous sequined gown, you can’t run along the ocean and run on the beaches.”
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(999x0:1001x2):format(webp)/kim-novak-2-101231c27b9c4df5a8faf795e92c9c13.jpg)
“I kept feeling like I was going deeper and deeper, lost in almost like a quicksand, where it’s swallowing you up, your own personality, and I’d started to wonder who I am,” she explains. “I realized needed to save myself.”
She found peace living and painting in the Rogue River Valley of Oregon and notes, “I needed the Pacific Ocean to inspire me, the animals, the beauty.”
“I wanted to live a normal life and a life with animals,” says the actress, who had always loved drawing and painting as a young girl growing up in Chicago. She was awarded two scholarships to the Chicago Art Institute before she was spotted by a talent scout on a trip to L.A. and her life changed course.
Once she left Hollywood, Novak returned to her twin passions: art and animals. “My teachers were the animals, not just dogs and cats, but other animals, horses and llamas, whom you have to meet half way, because they’re not ready to accept humans. I had to learn to win them over,” she says. “They understand a person who’s genuine so I had to become more real and that made me rely on my inner self — and that also encouraged me to paint. Everything seemed to flow from that.”
“You learn how to count on, not how you look, which is a big thing as a movie star, especially if you were recognized because of how you look,” she adds. “That can be a difficult thing when you change — but looks had nothing to do with it.”
She met second husband, Robert Malloy, an equine veterinarian, in the late ’70s, when he paid her a house call to treat one of her Arabian horses. She called him her “soul mate.” He died last December.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(653x0:655x2):format(webp)/KIM-NOVAK-jimmy-stewart-VERTIGO-2000-5dc2a42cbd04435a89e716959a51902d.jpg)
“I don’t feel 87,” says Novak. “I don’t keep tract of the time. If I did, I’d be an old lady and I’m not an old lady. I’m still riding my horse. I stay as healthy as I can.”
In 2012, Novak revealed she’d been living with bipolar disorder. “I don’t mind being open about who I am because these are all characteristics which make you who you are, especially as an artist,” she says. “Now, of course, I have medication for it but the best medicine of all is art.”
She’s proud of her favorite films, including Vertigo and Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and has fond memories, especially of her friend and costar Jimmy Stewart. Says Novak: “He didn’t let Hollywood change who he was.”
“People can remember me in movies but I want them to see me as an artist,” says Novak, whose paintings were exhibited at a 2019 retrospective at the Butler Museum in Youngstown, Ohio. “What’s great about painting is, you become the director too. No one’s telling you how to do it. You get to direct the whole thing.”
“I’ve been influenced a lot by Hitchcock in my work because he did mysteries and at first glance, I want my painting to be a mystery,” she says. “I love being the director, the producer, the actor in my paintings.”
“This is who I am. I want people to see I was not just a movie star.”
Looking back, Novak says, “I’m so glad I didn’t do the tell-all book, where you write all about your love life. That wasn’t who I was. This book tells who I am. I just needed to be free.”
Leave a Reply