Unparallel Lives

My father died at 97, a month ago tomorrow. Queen Elizabeth II died at 96, two weeks ago. Charles and Diana were married three days before Jonathan and I were married, at the end of July, 1981. Their marriage ended unhappily, ours has endured for over 40 years, but I don't think it's because we made our own wedding cake, or because I sewed my own dress, but rather because we were free to follow our own hearts in ways that they were not. I would never have wanted to change places.

My father, too, was free after WWII to build his own life in ways that Queen Elizabeth could have never acted upon; her entire life was turned over to duty and service, constrained by rules and tradition that contemporary society has long ago discarded. How many jewels and Arabian horses and gilded coaches does it take to make up for that? For her sister, her uncle, or some of her own children and grandchildren, the tradeoff was clearly not worth it. Yet we watch this family drama, which is actually a tragedy, with fascination and even envy.

Just as our weddings were in stark contrast, so were the funerals. But given the traditional Anglican liturgy that formed the basis of both services, they shared a similar structure and many of the same words. I was grateful for that structure when I was planning dad's service, and the familiar words were a comfort to me. When I heard them again, during our cathedral's commemoration for the Queen last Sunday afternoon, and again during the televised services the next day, it was harder to keep myself together than it had been during my father's service. Out of the public eye, and without a eulogy to deliver, I was more able to grieve, and if I shed some tears, they were more for my father than for the Queen.

However, there was much to admire in Queen Elizabeth, even for this American who has never quite understood why Canada remained in the Commonwealth, and so devoted to the monarchy. She became queen in 1952, the year I was born, so in addition to being the same age as my father, she ruled for 70 years, which is the age I turned the day after her funeral. And, we share a name. Elizabeth I has been a constant presence of whom I was aware from the beginning. Regardless of what one thinks of the institution of the monarchy, and their immense wealth and privilege, it was always significant to me that there was a woman in that role, and that she held the respect of other world leaders with a quiet, dignified, and unquestioned authority. She may not have had real political power, but she led in other ways that people seemed to need, and to respect. The majority of people who watched her funeral, or tried to see her coffin lying in state, or left flowers in remembrance, were not doing so out of voyeurism or celebrity worship; something real was going on there, whether we agree with it and share it, or not.

And these were historical moments; for anyone who has studied history, religion, and ancient cultures, one has to notice the power of symbolism and ritual that, in all cultures, attempts to unite us to our ancient forebears, connect us to the earth and the heavens, and make sense of the greatest mystery of all. As I stood in a crowd of Canadians on Sunday, at the conclusion of the service, and the organ moved from the final hymn and blessing to the opening bars of "God Save the King", sung to those words for the first time in 70 years, I could feel the emotion around me. Likewise, who could remain completely unmoved by the final minutes of the Windsor committal service, when the crown and other symbols of Elizabeth's earthly and historical power were removed from the coffin before it sank beneath the floor?

Under the September sun, thirty friends and family members stood around my father's grave in the old village cemetery where I played as a young child. At the conclusion of the brief committal service, we placed the paper box containing his ashes into the same grave where my mother's remains had been buried sixteen years before. Then I took a shovel into my hands and put the first earth into the grave, passed the shovel to my husband, who did the same, and then, slowly, silently, nearly all of the people present took a turn, and we buried my father together and then strewed red roses on the grave.

People can despise the monarchy, but can't we find it interesting and significant that human beings have tried to find meaning in death, and mark this great transition with dignity and respect, since time immemorial? And in the aftermath of Elizabeth's death, can't we summon enough charity to hold our criticisms and judgements until she is at least buried? This was a woman who shouldered her unchosen and unwanted role with selflessness, and all these years later, seems to have grieved her partner's death and met her own with stoic, private courage. She was not blameless, but there is no way that all the crimes of colonialism and empire can be laid at her feet; these things go back very far indeed, and are shared by many other countries. If it is time now for some commonwealth nations to change their systems of government, so be it.

There's nothing like writing a eulogy to confront the sobering thought: what will someone have to say about me, someday? For, in fact, none of us are blameless, and I think we all hope that when our own time comes, people will be charitable,a nd remember us for our good qualities more than for our failings.

For death, I think, is the great leveler: it comes to us all, we all go down to the dust, and no one can take their earthly goods or power with them. When those deaths occur which stop us in our tracks and cause a shudder or even an earthquake in our own lives, it is a time to look in the mirror. What can we learn from the life of this person who is with us no longer? What lasts, what remains? What do we want to do with the unknowable balance of time that remains to us, and with the friends who surround us in those moments, surely far more precious than gold?

 

Comments

[Peter]

There is quite a bit we can learn about service and commitment from both Elizabeth’s and your father’s lives. From what I know, I think you will have a similar record. A belated happy birthday!

[am]

"What do we want to do with the unknowable balance of time that remains to us, and with the friends who surround us in those moments, surely far more precious than gold?"

Thank you so much for sharing your art work and for writing with such clarity.

[Roderick Robinson]

Some people claim to be "monarchists", a term that baffles me. They may be saying, in effect, that they are willing to live in a country which is designated a monarchy; if so it seems hardly worth mentioning. Surely it's wider than that. But how wide, and what are the rules?

The media coverage of the funeral in the UK was interminable, forcing me to consider just exactly what it was I was watching. The pageantry meant nothing.(A form of disguise, perhaps?) and the various hierarchies strangely irritating. The only matter worth analysing were the crowds and what they had to say for themselves. Not a subject that appeals to me; secretly I make no distinction between drunks about to attend a soccer game and the stiff-armed, stiff-legged frozen faces that Leni Riefenstahl captured in The Triumph of the Will.

However, the funeral crowds were different: quiet, orderly and some of them quite obviously mourning. Symbolic crowds, then, relating to an old woman who, herself, had become a symbol. But do symbols have a useful value? I explored this in a recent post but I'd forgotten one piece of film that was both symbolic and valuable. The Queen shaking hands with Martin McGuinness, a senior functionary in the Provisional IRA, masterminding bombings and assassinations, now elevated to high office at Stormont, the parliament of Northern Ireland. Both of them smiling. More recently the Stormont government has ceased to function as the Unionists and Sinn Fein (McGuinness's lot) wrangle over what seem like minor arguments.

Never mind. That handshake crystallised a period of peace better than any voice-over blah-blah. It had value.