Queen of Hearts

Princess Diana.. I.LOVED.HER. She was the epitome of every little girl's fantasy to grow up, marry the prince of her dreams, and live happily ever after. She had style. She had class. She was simply beautiful. I've always been an anglophile, but Diana intensified my interest in all things English. Although I was a very small child when she and Charles began their courtship, I remember it vividly. She was so shy, seemed so in love with him and it seemed like she would be the perfect princess. I remember getting up at the break of dawn to watch her wedding. I remember how the commentators commented on her beauty that day, how long the train of her wedding dress was, and who her attendants were, how she included the children that she had taught at nursery school. They seemed like the perfect couple, the kind you read about in fairy tales, but alas, life is no fairy tale. We've since heard all the sordid tales of Charles' and Diana's marriage. I admit, I kept up with her through the tabloids. The very ones that caused her such distress. The ones who are probably responsible for her death ten years ago this Friday. A death that should not have happened. A death that was too soon. I remember the exact moment I heard she had died. It's one of those seminal moments that define our lives, like the moment you heard JKF died, or when the space shuttle, Challenger, exploded. It was late at night, and Art and I had been up watching the BBCAmerica channel on television. The program was interrupted with the news that Princess Diana had been in a car accident and had died. I could not believe it. I skimmed other news channels for confirmation because I simply could not believe that she was dead. Someone so full of life, just gone in an instant, it didn't seem possible, but it was. And I grieved. I was pregnant with my own son then and I grieved for the young sons she left behind. Having lost my own mother at about the age her oldest son was, I could empathize. I remember the outpouring of grief and love for her and her boys. The mountains of flowers at her estate, she was truly the Queen of hearts. Again, I was up early to watch her funeral service, her boys walking with their father, uncle, and grandfather to the service, and the drive to Althorp for her internment. The image of the horse drawn cortege bearing her body to the church with flowers and loving notes from her children on the casket is burned into my memory. She was many things to many different people. A comfort to the sick, a crusader for the injured, a role model, a fundraiser for needy charities, a wife, a mother, a woman. Let us remember her not only for her physical beauty, but for the beauty that she possessed within that reached out to others.

Rest in peace, Queen of Hearts.