Three generations of Kerr women talk to Bryce Corbett, who discovers how tragedy taught them the importance of having a mum.
Mother’s Day is especially poignant in the Kerr household. Not least because two generations of the women whose gene pool gave the world Miranda Kerr lost their mothers when they were only very young.
Talk now to Miranda’s mum, Therese, or Miranda’s grandmother, Ann, and they will both speak of the day they lost their mother in matter-of-fact terms.
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“She went into hospital and never came out,” recalls Ann, 75. “Mum was 32 and I was 13 years old. We waved her goodbye in the taxi that took her to hospital and that was the last we saw of her.
“My father went grey overnight. He never remarried. He always said he loved my mother too much.”
For Therese, who was 17 years old and pregnant with Miranda when her mother unexpectedly passed away, the memory of that day is similarly vivid.
“Mum woke up one morning with pains in her chest, was admitted to hospital and never came out,” Therese remembers. “I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest. And the saddest thing for me is that she never got to meet my children. I would give anything for that. She would have been so proud of them.”
There are no tears from either Kerr matriarch as they relate their sad story, yet barely a day goes by that Ann and Therese don’t think about their mums.
But time is a healer and the Kerr women of Gunnedah, in country NSW, are nothing if not stoic, all products of good country breeding.
Observing Ann and Therese now as they pose with Miranda for The Weekly’s cameras, it’s obvious that they form a close-knit family.
Although the rigours of full-time supermodelling mean Miranda has to divide most of her time between homes in Los Angeles and New York, she still speaks to or texts her mother at least once a day.
“I learned at a very early age that family is more important than anything,” says Therese. “Ann has been like a mum to me.”
Adds Ann: “We know what it is like to lose your mother at a young age. It created a bond between us. It makes you realise how important it is in your life to be able to say that one little word: Mum.”
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It’s a source of no small amount of pride for Miranda, too, that she was born of such hardy stock.
“Mum and Nan are two of the strongest women I know and they are a great source of strength in my life,” she says.
“I am so very close to my mum. I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I think you can only ever fully appreciate how devastating losing your mum would be when you actually go through that experience yourself.”
Read more of this story in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
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