Forgetting, and Remembering, Princess Diana

How could I forget?
Ten years ago, Diana, Princess of Wales, her boyfriend Dodi Fahed and his chauffeur died after a car crash in Paris as they were pursued by a horde of paparazzi.
I remember being shocked when the news flashed on the TV.
I’ve been enamored of British royalty for a long. I’ve read nearly ever biography I could find about any royal affiliated with the British Crown, plus other royal houses in other countries. Their lives are so strange, so appealing, yet often sad.
I’ve been fascinated by Diana from the beginning like so many others. I remember when she was “discovered” how pretty she was. Her looks brought her fame even then, her fresh face, her sweet smile, her blond hair, those blue eyes. She was amazingly pretty for an English girl, it was written.
Much was made of Diana being more British than Prince Charles. I remember reading of her lineage in several magazines. As was noted, the House of Windsor, as it was renamed during the World War, is much more German than English.
I stayed up late to watch her wedding to Charles.
Her wedding dress was gorgeous. Her train was so long … 19 feet or 21 or 27? I forget the exact length. But I remember the little flower girls who helped maneuver it. They were so cute.
I watched her wave shyly from Buckingham Palace’s public viewing balcony after the nuptials.
Photographs of the wedding, and everyone who was there, decorated magazines and even some newspapers.
It was all so romantic.
I remember Sarah Ferguson’s wedding to Prince Andrew, Randy Andy.
I remember watching it, but it didn’t leave as much of an impression as Diana’s did.
I remember all the pictures of the two princesses together.
I remember Sarah’s divorce. How it was rumored the two, extremely unhappy in their marriages, plotted Sarah’s divorce to see what it might presage for Diana’s hoped-for escape.
I remember Sarah saying that they were the first two women who left a monarch without losing their heads.
They didn’t lose their heads, but they were sullied in many ways.
It seemed that Diana, just a bit older than I, was finely getting her act together, finding happiness again. Who could say if it were true happiness?
Then it was tragically cut short.
I watched Fox News’s special of the remembrance of Diana’s life at the 10-year anniversary of her death.
I watched, and I admired her sons, William and Harry.
Then I spotted Prince Charles.
And I was reminded of Sarah’s comment.
And I saw, again, that Diana was the sacrificial lamb. The necessary virgin vessel needed to bear the royal heirs, the Heir and the Spare, as William and Harry have been called.
Then, as I watched Charles, I was angry.
After the boys’ births, Charles’s use of her was over. He sure didn’t seem to try to work hard at being married to Diana. He did what generations of royal men did, what many English “nobility” still do today. He tried to keep up appearances while having the woman who flattered him and pandered to his self-centered needs. Some critics said Diana should have just accepted with good grace what many royal women before her have.
But they didn’t get it.
There was a reason why pharaohs married their sisters or half-sisters, and bred the Egyptian royalty into disease and ill health. The pharaoh, like many royal figures, believed they were gods. Receiving vessels of a god can’t be sullied by a mere man partaking of reflected godliness. Men caught as a lover’s of a pharaoh’s daughter or wife were disposed of, often by being sewn inside sheepskin and placed in wooden coffins alive to die, unnamed, the most ignominious of deaths because they partook of the pharaoh’s divinity.
What Diana became, despite of the obstacles in her life, despite of the character flaws she had, despite the handicaps royal life gave, was a hymn to serve God, by showing his love through her.
People try to degrade her, by saying she sinned too, it wasn’t just Charles; or she didn’t try hard enough; that she was a calculating, cold bitch. Those types of arguments don’t hold water.
She was a loving, giving woman who did the best she could with what she had. We can’t judge her. People struggle with their own flaws. Hers were on a public stage and not always conducted in the best, most discreet way.
But 10 years after her death, we saw two of her best projects, the boys she loved with all her heart, mind and soul, William and Harry. They graciously shared their mother with all of us one more time, hoping that her memory, life and death, can now be given the peace she richly deserves.