Grief is the price we pay for love

I have never been one for public mourning. Mourning to me is best done alone, by a river, under the old oak tree where only nature can see my tears. Without apology nor embarrassment. Without public fanfare nor social amplification.

Full confession: I am also something of an antiroyalist. Or perhaps I just became weary of behaviour of some of the royal family. Or just the endless, rather pointless media coverage or their every whim or disagreement.

And yet I feel a profound sadness at the death of our Queen. I never knew her. I met her once fleetingly and, after all, she lived a full life to the ripe old age of 96. So why such sadness?

Perhaps there is just too much change in our world right now. Too many unknowns. Perhaps we all just feel the jittery uncertainty of tomorrow.

We have had to grow accustomed to nothing staying the same. Through the pandemic, war in Europe and a looming recession.

Through it all the Queen was our constant. The still point in a tumultuous world.

She was the grandmother of our nation. She represented esteemed leadership in the vicarious turning tides of time and progress for as long as any of us can remember.

She was grace and poise. Always immaculate in her tartan skirt and pearls. With her great big beaming smile.

She stood unwaveringly in the face of a revolving door of (sometimes unsavoury) political leaders, war and civil unrest, public dissent, death and tragedy in her own family – all played out so publicly on a global media stage.

Perhaps she reminds us all of our own grandmothers and their role in shaping our mothers, ourselves as women, as leaders, and now as mothers ourselves.

She is woven into the fabric of our society. Her face is the poster for national firmament. Her life is the back story to our history and national identity.

She lived to honour a tradition that in most countries has become extinct. She devoted her life to leading our nation and what remains of our commonwealth. Quite simply, we don’t make women like this anymore. She was a one off. They broke the mould.

She leaves us all asking; Who are we without her? What is the future of the royal family?

Perhaps we thought she was immortal. Perhaps that is why today seems rather barren. For despite her evident declining health, we never imagined her not being our Queen, through whatever our crazy world threw at us.

To borrow the words of Philip Larkin in his poem for the Silver Jubilee:

“In times when nothing stood

“But worsened or grew strange

“There was one constant good

“She did not change.”

Whatever your view on the Royal family, it’s impossible not to stand in awe of her long unfaltering commitment to duty. Right up to the very end.

And explaining all this to the old oak tree doesn’t seem to be quite enough.

I think everyone will feel discombobulated, afraid perhaps, whether we take to social media or find our comfort in babbling brooks and bird song.

But perhaps we can all find comfort from the Queen herself who in a message of condolence to the families of British victims lost in the 9/11 terrorist attack said: “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

Rest in peace Our Queen.

ENDS