As a child, she survived the desertion of her father, a mother who simply could not show affection to a child, and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands (like most Dutch children, she served as a shield for the resistance with the consequence of death ever looming). Interestingly, in terms of importance to her development, parental desertion and lack of affection rank as more important to her than the Third Reich.
Audrey trained as a classical ballerina, adoring every moment spent dancing -- and worked as a model, but never planned to be a stage or screen star. In interview after interview throughout her life, Audrey honestly shared that she never wanted to be an actress, and never believed that the accolades and adoration she won were earned. And while living a life she never wanted, she carefully didn't let on how intensely, profoundly unhappy she was through the majority of her life.
It was only near the end of her life, when she realized that she could *use* the fame she had never sought for the benefit of those that she desperately wanted to serve, that she found true joy and purpose. Audrey Hepburn became a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, tirelessly serving the organization that had saved her life in 1944 by journeying throughout Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia to advocate for the sick, the hungry, the parentless, and the homeless children of the world, until her death from cancer in 1993.
How wondrous for her to realize that the things she had learned and studied, the things at which she had desperately tried to succeed despite all manner of dissatisfaction and weariness and sadness, had thus prepared her for the work which "fulfilled the deepest, aching recesses of [her] soul".
There's a lesson there -- certainly an important one for me. I'm fortunate enough to be profoundly happy with my life, perhaps outrageously so. What is my current work -- which I love with all my heart -- preparing me to accomplish down the road? What service will I be ready to render in thirty years time? How will what I'm doing now force me to grow, allow me to change in ways I haven't anticipated, so that opportunities I've never considered become the best and most logical option?
"People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;
never throw out anyone."
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