When I was little, I stayed at my grandma’s house and we both got up at the crack of dawn to watch Lady Di marry Prince Charles. I remember being excited when they had children. I remember being riveted by the gossip about the their disastrous marriage. I remember the shock of Diana’s death, the sadness of that small envelope on her coffin, the handwriting of her little boy on it. The lurid knowledge of the inner workings of that family, revealed by Diana’s refusal to play along.
The Royals have been a gossip fixture in America for my whole life. And at the base of it all was Queen Elizabeth. As I grew up, I learned more about her history. Her father’s steadfast refusal to leave London during the air raids of World War II. Her belief, forged in that fire, that the monarch must always be a beacon of stability and hope even in the darkest of days. I respected her for upholding that ideal, even though it often seemed silly to those of us born later. The monarchy has felt increasingly anachronistic as the 21st century progresses, and partially it’s because the Queen’s brand of stability came off as stodgy and old-fashioned.
But I’m shaken by her loss. Stability seemed boring back in the day, but over the past 7 years, I’ve come to crave it. Our world is buffeted by rising authoritarianism, reawakened threats of nuclear war, and inescapable climate change. Institutions we took for granted have shown their weakness, from the Electoral College to the Supreme Court to the vaunted “checks and balances” we Americans were promised as children. Congress is broken, the presidency stands on a knife’s edge, churches are drowning in abuse scandals, the Covid pandemic severely tested the CDC and our healthcare system, and our international alliances have shown cracks thanks to the revelation of our domestic weakness. It’s disconcerting to feel that there is no solid ground under our metaphorical feet.
Queen Elizabeth was always there. No matter the prevailing winds, the Queen stood firm. Sometimes we loved her, sometimes we hated her, and in the end none of that matters. She was THERE. Approve of her or not, you could count on her. There is value in that kind of presence. There is value in stability, and if she did nothing else, she gave us that. In a world gone mad, the Queen of England would still carry on.
It’s of no importance to me what happens to the British monarchy. They’ve been mostly a fun distraction throughout my life, rich people doing rich people things and wearing gorgeous fashion. But the Queen was also a symbol, the stiff upper lip of a people who truly did suffer and endure throughout the world wars. I will miss her comforting stodginess and her brightly colored hats. I will miss the institution she represented–not the monarchy and all its devastating colonial history, but the institution that she herself was. I can only imagine how adrift the British people must feel at her loss. We will never see her like again.
