Soapbox

Goodbye

Saturday September 6, 1997 08:18 AM

Goodbye England’s Rose…

So I’ve got these kids…and I went in and stood, watching them both sleeping a few minutes ago. Then I called my mother.

"Oh, Tracy, I was just wondering if you were awake yet…I’m so glad you called, I’m just, well…" and she started to cry.
Neither my mother or I are celebrity watchers and in our lives I don’t suppose we’d ever had a discussion about Princess Diana before today. Today was different, though. Today I got up at a quarter ’til 5 to watch the funeral of Diana Spencer Windsor, Princess of Wales on CNN.

I watched the ceremonial gun carriage carry her coffin to Westminster Abbey, followed on foot by her sons, brother, ex-husband and his father. I saw members of her favorite charities process behind the royalty, some of them in wheelchairs. I saw them pass an ocean of people and a sea of flowers into the cathedral. I heard Verdi’s Requiem and listened to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the little boy sopranos, and then started to cry when I heard Elton John sing the song that had been re-written for the occasion, "Candle In The Wind". I tried to act like I wasn’t, though, because I didn’t want Ted to see.; I didn’t think he’d understand.
I’m not sure I understand, except that, in addition to being beautiful and elegant and sophisticated and wealthy and royalty, she was also shy and unsure and rejected and tormented and misused.
And of course, she was a mom.

I realized with surprise that Prince William is already as tall as his father, and wonder how much longer until Stephen catches up with his Dad. And little Harry, who still looks like a child on the outside, and who held his father’s hand with such courage as they stopped to look at some of the cards and flowers left for his mother.
The thought of leaving my children before they are grown leaves me almost breathless with terror, and their lives are so much simpler than the princes’ ever will be. I listened to the Earl of Spencer tell the Queen and the world that although he is mindful of the legacy of royalty his nephews have from their father, that they have an equally important legacy from their mum: a legacy of love and support and laughter that must be maintained. She tried so hard to raise them like real people, not the little royal puppet her father was made to be.
Then there was the recessional anthem, with the haunting bass drone, accented by the soft rhythm of the pallbearers’ boots. As the hearse pulled away from Westminster, people in the crowd waved sadly, and began tossing flowers in the street. Before long the hood and roof of the hearse were covered in flowers.

So I called my mom, because during the moment of silence I had said a prayer for children everywhere, of any age, who lose their mothers. I thought of my mother at the funeral of her own mother, saying, "Tracy, you’re never too old to feel like an orphan." I thought about the day when I"ll be sitting at the funeral for my mother, singing her favorite hymns and missing the sound of her sure voice leading the altos. And I looked in on my own two, enjoying their Saturday morning sleep-in and praying that it will be many years before I have to face the prospect of leaving them. but we never know, do we?

I’m still not sure why I cried as I watched the hearse drive away; saying goodbye to someone I’d never even known. It was a closure, of sorts. See, I got up early one morning the summer I worked at Girl Scout Camp to watch Diana’s wedding, all those years ago. It seemed fitting to get up to watch her funeral. The questions and controversies and crazy conspiracy theories will rage for years, but this morning, they don’t matter.
This morning was for saying goodbye.

And it seems to me that you lived your life like a candle in the wind
Never fading with the sunset when the rains set in.
And your footsteps will ever fall here among England’s greenest hills
Your candle burned out long before your legend ever will.