Long Live the Queen

Meg texted our family group chat on Thursday to let us know that Queen Elizabeth had died.  I shouldn't really have been surprised as she was 96 years old, but I guess I was.  She had already outlived the leaders of my childhood including Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev, so I think I believed she was immortal.

The rest of the week I received numerous stories on my news feed about the Queen and the Royal Family. If I wanted to read them all I would have learned who was with her when she died, when Prince Charles would become the King of England and the news roles of all of her family.  I also could have looked at countless Tweets and Memes on social media about the Queen's death.  Instead, I let Cameron share his favorites with me.  We both enjoyed the one pointing out that the Queen died on the same day that the NFL season started meaning that "the US was back, baby."

Overall, I realized that I hadn't really followed the Royal Family for years.  I knew that Prince Harry and his wife were on the outs with the family and that there were rumors that Prince William had cheated on his wife.  I also saw pictures of Prince William's children, but I guess I just wasn't that interested.  My mom gave me a People magazine that she had received in the mail.  It had memories of Princess Diana in it as she had died 25 years ago last week.  I thought a lot about how famous she really was.  Her wedding was viewed by millions.  She was constantly in the news with stories of her humanitarian aid, the birth of her children, the poor treatment she received by Prince Charles and their subsequence divorce.  Her funeral was telecasted across the world and Elton John even wrote a song about her for the service.  

After Princess Diana's death, I think I just stopped caring about what the Royal Family was doing.  It's amazing to me that one person seemed to eclipse their entire family in popularity.  Maybe it was because she seemed like a real person, a true life Cinderella story.  It could have also been because she was incredibly beautiful.  Either way, she was the Royal that I followed, so I doubt I will be buying any Queen Elizabeth memorabilia.  I might however finally watch one of the half dozen or so movies made based on her life.  That might be interesting.