It’s been a week since Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96. Let’s not kid ourselves here though. We weren’t surprised, we’d been expecting it for some time, especially given her health problems over the last few months, problems that were more than evident during the recent Platinum Jubilee. But that didn’t shield us from the feelings of shock when we heard the news, and the feelings of grief we’ve felt over the past seven days.
I’ve spent the past few days considering whether or not to write this blog post. Like millions of my fellow Brits I’ve watched as our new King and other members of his family have publicly shared his grief at the loss of a mother, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother. But despite having seen this I held off writing this, not knowing what to say, wondering if my words would seem a little…..well, you know.
Then a couple of days ago I saw a woman being interviewed after she’d seen the Queen’s coffin lying in state at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh, and in just a few words she perfectly summed up what most of us were feeling. “It’s like losing your granny. She was the country’s granny.”
And so the penny dropped. This young woman, her child in her arms, finally made me realise just how I felt about the events that had unfolded on the screen before me.
I was born in 1971, nearly twenty years after Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II. I’ve never known anything else. She’s always been there, my country’s Head of State, Her Majesty, my Queen.
Now she’s gone, and I freely admit it feels a little odd knowing that I no longer have a Queen, that I now have a King.
I never met the Queen. I never saw her in person up close or from afar. But she was always there, and my country, and the world, seems a little poorer without her presence.
Rest in peace ma’am.
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