State Funeral

 

I thought I would be more emotional during the Queen’s funeral. I was up at 2:00 a.m. to catch the start of the proceedings – mostly people arriving at the Abbey ahead of the service – and hung in there until 6:00 a.m., when the Queen’s motorcade crept out of London en route to Windsor. The procession from Westminster to Wellington Arch was gruelling – and I wasn’t even following on foot! Given the time between the funeral and the committal service, I figured I could grab a nap and be awake for the final stages at St George’s Chapel.

Nope. I slept past it; again, thank the gods for Youtube.

Ten days is a long time. At this point, I was more aggrieved for the royal family, especially the King and his siblings, for having to march in line behind the coffin once more. Of course it’s to honour their mother as much as the late monarch and I would have wanted to do the same, but oh, my, the miles they have trudged in Her Majesty’s wake. And, I dare say, at their ages. I can only imagine their relief that all is finally over. Closure has occurred, the second Elizabethan Era is ended and a new reign begins.

Shouldn’t something have changed? The world feels the same. The sun rose this morning, autumn is still scheduled for the end of this week, the war is still on in Ukraine. I imagined that her death would somehow mirror my own mother’s passing, when my surroundings took on a stunning new brilliance I hadn’t seen before. The royal Elizabeth was as important as mine, yet despite ten days of mourning, with four spent lying-in-state, now that it’s done, it’s done. There might be some global follow up in the next couple of days, but guaranteed the focus outside the UK will soon enough revert to the usual business of “suffering and greed, here today, forgot tomorrow”.

As for me, it’s back to walking my own path, being the best I can be in any given moment – but remembering Her Majesty’s example, which was really not dissimilar to what my mother taught me about treating others with kindness and respect. I’m grateful to have witnessed these massive moments in history. I have been touched through the connection that binds me to every living soul, uniting us in grief and sympathy for the loss of an exceptional person. Perhaps I can’t foresee a difference to my life in the aftermath ... yet there will be unexpected moments when I am reminded of the change in this country’s hierarchy. It may be a tiny thing, like a filing a chargeback from the King’s Printer when a month ago I was filing them from the Queen’s Printer, or something more poignant, like watching the King’s Christmas message when it used to be given by the Queen, but I will have those moments and then I’ll know.

Actually, I kind of know already. When someone passes on, whether famous or family, everything changes. We just don’t always recognize it.

With love,

God Save the King

 

I wonder how strange it must feel for the former Prince of Wales to sign himself “Charles R”.

Though it’s only been a few days since the Queen’s passing, the adjustment to having a King has been easier than I’d originally imagined, perhaps because yesterday was about the proclamation and accession of the new monarch rather than about Her late Majesty. The formal proceedings at St James’ Palace were fascinating to watch. I never thought I’d say this, but bless Youtube as a repository for such things. At the end of a busy day prepping for my return to work, Ter and I were able to catch up on this piece of living history hours after it had happened. Time zone issues, you know.

Maybe it’s as much because she and I are career public servants as we are Royalists that we observed with keen interest the reading, signing, and witnessing of the accession proclamation by the King and Privy Council members. Draft Orders-in-Council were approved regarding use of the existing royal seals pending creation and authorization of new ones, one of a million changes to be made when a king succeeds a queen. Even here in Canada, in BC, there are protocols regarding the Queen’s portrait (drape it in black), the state of legislation passed under the previous reign (they remain in effect), and the shift of lawyers named from Queen’s Council to King’s Council (it’s automatic and immediate).

Again, His Majesty gave a fine speech, this time to the assembly. There is no doubt he gets both the gravity of his new responsibilities and the weighty challenge of following his mother’s stellar example. I still think he’ll do well enough in his own right, in his own way.

I was particularly touched – and amused – when the motorcade departing Buckingham Palace at the end of the day yesterday suddenly stopped halfway along the Mall. The Rolls carrying the King veered off at an angle and came to a full halt. The back door opened and His newly proclaimed Majesty got out for a spontaneous walkabout with spectators along the road. The scramble of media cameras to seek and focus on him with the crowd was hilarious, as the car had stopped between established view points and no one was prepared for it. Yet it confirmed for me the suspicion that his private grief may be helped by sharing in the public’s, for the Queen was a beloved figure in many people’s lives as well as within her own family.

There’s the surreal thing again. In absorbing the protocols around naming a new sovereign, I am reminded that the sole reason for them is that Queen Elizabeth has died. The reminder came this morning, when I awoke to the news that her coffin had arrived at Holyrood House in Edinburgh, there to await tomorrow’s service at St Giles ahead of transport to London and a lying in state at Westminster until the funeral on the 19th. Charles is in a uniquely painful position, taking on his mother’s job while simultaneously mourning her loss. Surely no other member of his family can relate so acutely to the awful contradiction of ascending monarch with mourning son. On all counts, I truly wish His Majesty well.

God save the King.

HM Queen Elizabeth II

 

I am a Royalist. Have been for most of my lives. It feels strange to have a third King Charles on the throne when I had taken for granted that my Charles would be the last of his name. He and his father were Stuarts, and both of their reigns were fraught with tragedy and tumult as the country tore itself apart then experimented with having no monarch at all. One might suppose that they had it coming, believing that the divine right of kings set them apart from the common folk ... but doesn’t it? Each of us has a destiny determined before we are born. If the Stuarts had been more humble about it, the Commonwealth period may not have happened and Charles I could have kept his head but, as I say, the destiny of a person or a country, even of the world, is predetermined.

I digress.

This past summer saw the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. At ninety-six, she had been our queen for seventy years, the longest reigning sovereign in English history (and given the struggles of past monarchs to keep the throne, that’s quite the achievement). Talk about destiny. At the time of her birth, Princess Elizabeth of York was not expected to be Queen. If her uncle Edward VIII hadn’t abdicated, she likely would have lived a relatively private life, certainly one with less responsibility.

But her uncle did abdicate, and at the age of twenty-one she made a vow to serve the people of the realm for as long as she lived. Against all odds, through public and personal challenges, and the tenures of fourteen prime ministers, she kept her word. She was an exemplary public servant. She never quit, never gave up. She made the best of bad days and maintained her public face, a face that was calm, kind, and so similar to my own mother’s that I liked to claim the Queen actually was my mother, but there had been a mix up in the royal nursery and I ended up in the custody of a nice middle class Scottish family. When I was invited to reclaim my royal birthright as an adult, I refused. I loved my adopted family far more than I desired to be a princess of the blood. As any cherished daughter will tell you, being a princess isn’t exclusive to lineage.

I digress again.

It’s no longer news that the Queen passed away on September 8, 2022. Ter and I have been on vacation, so we’ve had the luxury of being glued to the TV as events unfold. Given Her Majesty’s advanced age, of course it’s no surprise that she’s gone, yet it came as a surprise when she went. Maybe because the end came so quickly—on September 6, she had welcomed Liz Truss as the next Prime Minister and forty-eight hours later, I woke up to reports that she was under medical supervision and the family had been summoned. I was stunned. Shortly afterward, the announcement came that Her Majesty had passed away, whereupon time assumed that odd elastic quality of being at once real and surreal. The expected becomes unexpected and we respond by running through a gamut of emotion that defies explanation.

It was almost like a death in the family. Shock, sadness, compassion for her immediate family and especially the new King, followed by a thirst for details about what happens next. I don’t know anyone who remembers when the Queen’s father died, so how is this going to work? Making a plan is not the same as implementing it. Even step by step instructions require physical action to manifest. I’m sure glad it’s not my job. All I have to do is get up at 3:00 a.m. PST on September 19 to watch the funeral. I can only imagine the stress running rampant at Buckingham Palace.

Am I digressing again? Maybe. I’m still running that gamut of emotion. I have been impressed with the King’s candour in his first speech as King. I’ve always considered him to be a gentle man, affable and kind with a genuine interest in the betterment of all people. I think he’ll do well enough. He’ll do best by following his mother’s example, which he has vowed to do though no one left on the planet can hope to meet the standard Queen Elizabeth II set during the course of her incredible lifetime.

She was quite simply the most valuable jewel in the Crown.

61

 

A year has passed already? When did that happen?

There’s no point in being mystified, as it clearly has happened. Better to accept and get on with it. In fact, it’s preferable.

It would be peevish to claim that my sixties have sucked, but really, the past twelve months have been challenging. I reacted to my second dose and subsequent booster of the COVID vaccine, resulting in so much pain that I could barely function on a day to day basis. I managed to keep to my work routine, but anything more—flâneries, writing, socializing, even eating regular meals—was beyond my capacity as I spent my free time sleeping to recover from the fatigue of said work routine. I lost weight, mobility and, to some extent, the will to live. My will to survive remained, else my sixtieth birthday might have been my last, thus I am here to tell you that, to quote Star Trek: the Next Generation, “survival (alone) is insufficient”.

I thank the gods every day for my beloved Ter. Without her, I would have been—and would still be—hooped. She made it her mission to get me through each day, to get me where I needed to be and see me safely home again. She took on all household chores. She pored over countless books and websites in search of solutions to my ongoing inflammation. She encouraged me in whatever I felt able to do, be it a shuffle around the park or a shuffle around the coffee table. In essence, she stepped up as she had done during 2016’s auto immune incident. She is simply the best. I cannot be grateful enough for her love and unlimited support. Why she puts up with me I do not know and no longer care. I’m just glad she does.

I found a physiotherapist to help me rebuild my strength with an eye to resuming my regular flâneries. It was promising to start, then I faltered. My condition is chronic rather than the result of a short-term injury and I was unable to maintain the level of activity he prescribed on a weekly basis. I did well enough to start, but then my energy would be sapped by stress at work or at home, or by what I might have eaten (and why) that caused a flare. We talked a lot about capacity versus activity, how psychology affects the physical, and ways to manage chronic pain that differ from his usual area of practice. In the end, he’s let me build my own routine based on the tools he gave me (load-bearing exercises and yoga/qigong videos on YouTube), but the really cool thing is he’s putting together a low impact program for folks with chronic pain and has asked me to help by giving him feedback after running through the steps with him. We inspired each other in a way neither of us anticipated, which proves to me that the Universe had a definite hand in me finding him.

Same with the chiropractor. My chiro of twenty-plus years retired last Christmas, so I’ve been test-driving potential successors. My first try worked out great for a few months, until she injured herself and I was forced to visit her colleague in the same clinic. I liked him so much that I’m considering switching to him for good. I have a good sense of what works for my body, and wonderful as Dr M is, Dr C has a subtle something extra that just feels better.

Now that COVID is here to stay, work has settled into halftime in town and halftime at home office. The world is a less amiable place than it was even a year ago, but the media doesn’t report good news or optimistic stories so I’m unconvinced that the positive in human nature is outdone by the negative in human nature. Power, money, ego and fear may get all the attention, but the spirit of creative collaboration defies the boundaries of race, religion and nationality.

While I work on overcoming my challenges, the Universe continues to care for me in every conceivable way. Miracles continue to manifest, if not for me directly then for people within my circle to which I am a witness. The world is stupid crazy, yet I am blessed with an inner calm that occasionally gives way to monkey mind but hey, that’s what mortality is all about, Charlie Brown.

Today I turn sixty-one. There’s plenty of time for my sixties to be my best decade yet. It’s up to me.

Happy birthday, Ru. With love,