A Personal Post - Why I Mourn The Queen

I’ve heard many people talk about how much the Queen’s death has moved them in a way they weren’t expecting. I’ve heard Americans and Republicans speak about how the Queen's death has made them sad. Sad for a time that the Queen represented: a time when values were placed above one’s own desires.

I feel the great sense of loss comes from the length of time the Queen was here. She was present for all major events in the world since the Second World War. She became Queen while Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. With the Queen living on it felt like our world still had a connection to that era. She embodied duty and decency and was a balance between tradition and modernity. She wasn’t perfect by any means, but she was a mainstay in all our lives.

I mourn the Queen’s death because it reminded me of the time and people who have passed in my own life, specifically my paternal grandmother, my baba.

My grandmother loved the Queen, and they were very similar. I read somewhere that the Queen had a morning routine of eating toast with tea or coffee while reading the newspapers. So did my grandmother. I read the Queen loved strawberries. So did my grandmother. The Queen dressed phenomenally. So did my grandmother. I now wonder if my grandmother read about the Queen's routine in a magazine and decided that it would work for her. 

I have been mourning the loss of my grandmother again. I remember her today, September 15^th, on the 9^th anniversary of her passing.

I mourn because the Queen embodied a time when duty, decency, restraint, faith, consistency, and privacy were honoured values – values my grandmother espoused. They were both the women of their time.