Within minutes of the confirmation of the queen’s death, major media outlets around the world started publishing obits and tributes. That is because to a large extent they were already written and just waiting for this moment. By the age of 96, the queen’s death had been anticipated for a long time.
In fact, news reports indicate that the royal family had been preparing extensively for her memorial services for the past 60 years. That is a rather ghoulish thought, but an indication of how seriously they take the pomp and circumstance of the throne.
In any event, as a story this one is unique for our time. A queen’s reign that stretched from the end of World War II to the war in Ukraine has come to a close. She was the one person in a prominent position who has always been in place for as long as most of us can remember.
When anyone who led an exceptionally long life dies, there is a certain familiar reaction among the rest of us — how much history they must have seen! We can’t help but compare our own vintage and measure ourselves accordingly.
Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926, the same year my paternal grandfather died in Canada, which of course was part of the British Empire. When she became queen I was five. She was old enough to be my mother.
I’ve never been a fan particularly of the monarchy but as for Elizabeth herself, I’ve always felt a certain respect. Various members of the royal family have been the objects of scandal or ridicule during her reign but never her. She always seemed to remain a figure of dignity and restraint.
As a young boy I collected stamps. By far the most common image on a stamp from anywhere in the world was the face of the queen. She had become queen in 1952, when Truman was president and Churchill was prime minister. Now her son, a man nearly my age, is king, which is an odd transitional moment for someone of my generation. Then again, the president of the U.S. is even older than he is, or than I am.
During our life spans, we grow dependent on certain people being in the world, for better or worse. Our sense of stability is partially built on their continued presence.
As we grow up, human beings learn that everyone dies. We experience our first death at different ages and in different ways. But still, when somebody close to us dies it is a shock that sends us into a period of mourning. That is because although you can prepare yourself for an event like that, you can never fully anticipate the emotional reaction you will experience until it happens.
Then you feel some of the deepest emotions you will ever feel.
Public figures die all the time like everyone else. Relatively few of those deaths provoke a public sense of immense loss for just about everyone in the world. The death of Elizabeth is one of those few.
May she rest in peace.
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