Princess Diana

  Nineteen years ago today, in a tunnel in Paris, Princess Diana was in a car accident and died a short time later in hospital. The "people's Princess" was gone. The world mourned.

  Perhaps you are one of the many people who remember where they were when they heard the news. John and I had just moved to Nova Scotia and were spending a few days touring around Cape Breton. We had spent the night in the small, picturesque town of St. Peter's. When we woke up the news was filled with reports and pictures. It somehow seemed to put a damper on our travels and we headed back home.

  It's not as if she was perfect. Far from it. But she was human. Diana had made mistakes and we all hoped she learned from them. She survived affairs, both her own and her husbands, and a messy divorce. But still she got up, put on her big girl panties and went about her business. Seen by all through the lens of the paparazzi cameras.

  That business included being Mom to two young boys. William was 15 and Harry was 12. Both at impressionable ages. Vulnerable after watching their parents separation, divorce and even their own lives being tabloid gossip. Diana did try, or so it seemed, to give the as normal a childhood as was possible for the "heir" and the "spare".

  For me the one thing that stands out was her empathy for children. Diana would hug children with AIDS. She would hold starving babies. Bending down and speaking with kids on her journeys. Those kids who were poor and dirty were treated as kindly, and with as much dignity, as the children who brought her flowers in pretty dresses and suits. She seemed to know who was the most in need of simple, basic kindness. And she knew how to give it. 

  I read an article a few days back where William was speaking to a boy who had lost his mother recently. Giving advice on a subject I'm sure he wishes he wasn't an expert on. He spoke eloquently and with the same empathy his mom always showed. It seems he has taken some of her ways as his own. Good for him.

  The world will never know what Princess Diana could have accomplished as she got older. I think she would have brought more sunshine to those who seemed to have so little. Perhaps she could have focused attention on those who the world seems to have forgotten.

  But we all know....she would have made a fantastic Grandma!

  Ang