Thirty years ago I bought this poster from a poster and frame shop on Capital Hill, in Seattle. I had it mounted into a plexiglass cover. The minute I saw it I knew I wanted to buy it. I didn’t have my checkbook on me so drove home and back to the shop. A week or so later I picked up the finished item.

Although an iconic movie print, it has always meant much more to me. Audrey Hepburn exemplified grace and dignity. A wonderful actress who had a pretty scary childhood, she seemed to meet each challenge with pluck and a steely determination. Her last years, while battling ovarian cancer, were spent volunteering her services in Africa. By then she was nearly as skeletal-looking as the children she reached out and touched, yet she endured and shone like a beacon of hope to those children. She died much too young, at age 63. I am 63.

In the last thirty years she has kept me company and reminded me that, although we all have personal and health issues, we can still carry ourselves with grace and dignity and treat others with needs the same.