Seven months ago, the world lost one of its greatest women.
Today would have been her 97th birthday.
I almost get emotional just thinking about it. Last week, when I watching a documentary that briefly touched on her passing, I felt tears springing to my eyes and a great ache rising in my heart.
I miss her.
When the news of her death reached me, I cried like when I lost my grandmother. I felt lost and crushed as if something strong and anchoring had gone out of my life. Because it had. Because that’s what she was to all of us.
I’ve heard people ask why she means so much to those of us who were proud to call her Queen – how someone we’ve maybe met once in our lives if we were lucky could win such faithful love and loyalty in her lifetime, and wring such tears of real grief at her death. “What has she ever done for you?” they ask, and I smile. “What has your country done for you?” I ask in return. It’s not about what she’s done – although she’s done more than some will ever believe – but about who she is and what she stands for. The Queen was our country – she stood for everything that unites us, everything that we love and stand for together. She meant so much to us, because she embodied the things we really cared about. If you are deeply patriotic about your country and you feel your heart swell with pride and love whenever you see your flag waving or your anthem playing, then you know how we feel about our Queen.
She was always there – she was always the same. While politicians won elections and lost elections, she stayed on the throne. While policies changed and times changed, and EVERYTHING changed, she didn’t. She grew old, but we barely noticed, because her smile never did – she was beautiful the day she ascended the throne and she was beautiful the day she died. In a world clamouring to be heard, she listened. In a world where people felt uncared for, unwanted, she looked each next person in the eye and let them know they were valued. In a world where people spoke up against wrong, she celebrated the good. In a world where everyone shouted opinions from the housetops, she kept hers private. She was so well known and yet so little known, because she cared more to know than be known.
When she was younger than I am, she promised her whole life “be it long or short” to the service of her people. She kept that promise. The constancy and discipline which a promise like that must have taken, I can never fathom, but I can admire. I can look up and resolve that I will follow in her footsteps – be it ever so humbly. For that shining example of faithfulness, I can never thank her, but I do thank her God.
She showed us a little type of what that God was like. How unchanging, how faithful He might be. How He loved each person, and listened to each person, and valued each person. In a world of strife and conflict, it is easy to doubt whether those in authority really care about people like you and me. We never doubted that with her. We knew. We knew that if she heard our story, she would listen, she would care, she would have compassion.
Maybe I only saw her once in my life – pressed up against a railing to catch a glimpse of the woman I had long admired and loved with loyal affection. But she changed my life. She was a rock of strength in turbulent times. In a life ridden with change, she was one constant. Her death shook me, but her memory will always inspire me. The things that she stood for, the kindness, empathy and value which she placed upon everyone, will continue to be the things I live for. The God that she served and under whose authority she reigned, claims the same wholehearted devotion from my life that he claimed from hers.
The Heaven where she rests with Him is the Heaven where I am going. I will see my Queen again, and together we will praise the King of kings. Until then, we miss her, and we remember her, and each in our own small sphere we strive to emulate the faithfulness and devotion of which she was such a shining example.
Happy birthday, Your Majesty! We miss you so very much.
Light in the Tunnel 