first of all, i don’t want to fucking hear your opinion on the monarchy. of course it’s fucking problematic – it’s a thousand-year empire filled with terrible history.
second of all, this isn’t exactly about the death of the queen, but it kind of is.
yesterday, Queen Elizabeth II died. there was no more than an hour between when i heard the news she was under medical supervision to when i found out she was gone. i knew at the first that when she succumbed i would be torn apart.
1. i’ve only ever known the world in which our head of state was Queen Elizabeth. her face has been on every cent i’ve ever spent.
2. learning about her personal history only made me respect her more. she was 25-years-old and thrust into a position she didn’t want and did it with such grace and composure in the face of seven decades of the most change and tumult in history.
3. despite being a remote figurehead, she managed to engender an innate familiarity. i believe i’m not the only one who would say they felt they knew her better than they had any practical reason to.
4. in a world where EVERYTHING seems so wrong and angry and confusing and disappointing, she was a constant. a mast to cling to in a storm. now that that mast cracked and i’m adrift in a world which barely makes sense.
but, those aren’t the reasons why i fell apart and spent hours sobbing until my sinuses and eyes swelled shut.
it’s another loss of something i always had in my life. and, i have some – albeit tenuous – family connections to the royal family which, as they are cut, feel like i’m getting further and further removed from my past and family connections.
my mom’s dad was the mayor of the small town they lived in. as the story was told to me, mayors from the region were invited to dine with the queen and prince philip at a function when she was quite early in her reign. that means my grandparents got to eat with the queen! later in life, my grandmother had an affinity for the queen mother, even though she more closely resembled Elizabeth in features. honestly, it’s hard to look at certain older photos of the queen without seeing my grandma staring back at me – it’s uncanny.
but, at the core of it, the death of the queen felt like losing my mother all over again. it felt like something broke inside of me when i didn’t know there was anything left to break.
UPDATE: found it! this is the visit and the very luncheon my grandparents were at!