We snoozed our way through dreary mandatory Monday night meetings where, as college freshmen, the sweet but seemingly naive Dean of Women forced us to listen to her lecture on only one topic. Sister Angela Marie, SSND, insisted a woman’s whole purpose in life was to achieve her own unique “Divinely Human Womanhood.” It was a phrase she coined. We suppressed snickers and later mimicked her dramatic glance heavenward as she warned of what could happen to women who lost themselves trying to find it.

Though barely awake at the time, I have never forgotten this quaint phrase. I still have no idea what Divinely Human Womanhood is, or how to set about achieving it, or even how to know when you have arrived. I’ve surmised each woman perceives it differently.

When Anna Nicole Smith died at 39, I was surprised to feel a great sadness wash over me, sympathy for her thrashing about and frantic flailing, trying to find her way in many bizarrely complicated and dangerous situations.

It’s easy to dismiss and condemn, but it interested me that many women felt sorry that all opportunity now for achieving some peace out of chaos was lost. Did she believe she had achieved her own brand of Divinely Human Womanhood? Did she think she was short of her goal as she stumbled over her own beauty, packaged to the extreme and put front and center? Was her goal to be a magnet for every man, J. Howard Marshall in a wheelchair, and Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, who alleges he cheated on 90-year-old Zsa-Zsa Gabor to father her baby?

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Marilyn Monroe was her role model. But when she died at 36, Marilyn had already begun to make some important changes. The undertow of familiar ways was strong, but she was educating herself in a fight for her life, striving to be taken seriously as a competent actress and indeed finding her great comedic sense. Marilyn exuded a sweet, vulnerable innocence, in spite of everything. Given time, would Anna Nicole have achieved Marilyn’s kind of Divinely Human Womanhood?

Deep down, perhaps they both yearned to have the statues, respect and strength of actress Bette Davis, who was most effective in roles where she didn’t seem to be acting but portrayed valiant women experiencing pain and fear, love and loss. I think her most memorable scene was in the classic “Now Voyageur.” Suave Paul Henreid lit two cigarettes and handed one to Bette. She drew deeply and spoke of being content with the stars and not asking for the moon. Anna Nicole wanted the moon but had no idea how to capture it without destroying herself.

Eileen Ford of the Ford Modeling Agency looked for that quality she referred to as the “X” factor, a mysterious combination of physical beauty and the indefinable thing we call “class.” Ms. Ford might say Divinely Human Womanhood and the “X” factor were synonymous.

Gypsy Rose Lee, on the other hand, is credited as saying, “You either got it, or you ain’t, and baby, I’ve got it!” Many fans agreed with her brash assessment of her own Divinely Human Womanhood.

The life led by Mother Teresa may come the closest to what our Dean had in mind. Practical and selfless, the divinely human Mother Teresa might have said about Anna Nicole that she couldn’t forgive her for her mistakes because she never condemned her in the first place. Mother Teresa, the quintessential woman, may have looked at Anna Nicole and recognized the call for Love in one of its many distressing disguises.

Some have asked how I could be so blind as to feel sorrow at the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

On the heath, Shakespeare’s King Lear lamented to Gloucester, “You see how this world goes …”

And the blind Gloucester replied, “I see it feelingly.”

Stephanie Esworthy was director of Media and Public Relations and the Baltimore City Film Commission for former Mayors William Donald Schaefer and the late Clarence “Du” Burns and served as head of Baltimore City’s Bureau of Music in every city administration since Mayor Theodore McKeldin. She may be reached at steph21093@verizon.net.