I Cried When She Died - Did You?

Few of my readers at this very moment have to ask who “she” is …

Elizabeth II - or “Elizabeth the Great” as Boris echoed in the British Parliament the day after her death, perhaps creating a historical moniker for all time.

But it’s a wonder - why do I cry? 

Every time I think of her, I am a little weepy. None is as surprised as I am in my reaction. And I don’t think I am alone. Everywhere in the world - as happened when John Lennon died, and of course, Princess Dianna - our reaction goes far beyond our expectation of it. 

She was 96, and we are shocked?!

Stoicism is having a revival.

I knew another great Stoic practitioner - Marjorie Barstow. She left so much unsaid, giving you so much space to imagine, believe, explore, and wonder. It created a different kind of freedom from the ‘freedom-to-confess’, which chokes up so much of social media today.

The Queen didn’t confess. 

She didn’t project or tell. She let you do the thinking. And Marj was like that. I remember vividly one morning in her Sydney workshop when my trainee  Julian asked:

“Hey Marj - do you have to think delicately to move delicately?”

To which Marj replied:

“Well then, why don’t you move your head a little?’

And Julian did that, quite nicely in fact.

“There you are!” said Marj, with a happy twinkle.

Julian looked confused and was about to ask more, but Marj had moved on. This is Stoicism. It isn’t looking to prove itself. It leaves you more space to figure out what to think. As Marj moved away, I continued to watch Julian. And then suddenly I saw him smile and nod his head. He got it, what Marj meant. 

And it was his. He owned it. What a joy!

During Brexit, everyone desperately wanted to know what the Queen thought. No luck. Same for the Scottish referendum on independence (which failed) - what did the Queen think?

Like Marj, she said little…

“Well, I hope people will think very carefully about the future.”

Again, that’s Stoicism. It doesn’t do the job for you. They say Elizabeth learnt it from her grandmother Mary of Teck. When other royals started to complain about being tired of going to hospitals, Queen Mary told them:

“You are a member of the British royal family. We are never tired, and we all love hospitals.”

Again, Stoicism. You accept your lot. Marj was the same - after just arriving in Sydney from a long flight, I kept bugging her about jetlag and that she must be tired. She had finally had enough, declaring:

“I don’t know what a jet lag looks like - I don’t get tired because I decide not to.”

My Queen also had a vast fashion agenda but as Vanessa Friedman pointed out in a recent NYT article:

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“That she did all this while somehow being considered outside of fashion, using the safety of frumpiness and the boringly appropriate to disguise just how tactical her choices were, was a master class in sartorial misdirection.”

https://tinyurl.com/ye2x695p

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I personally have rarely been able to practise Stoicism - it feels beyond my psychic ability. And naturally, there are positives to the “explainers” of the world, of which I am one.

But in these times, I think it wise to pause and admire a way of being that creates freedom for others. That can offer safety and assurance when practised as elegantly as my Queen’s life epitomises.

Until she was gone, I never realised how much I loved her.