LondonNet’s Princess Di Obituary

 

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LondonNet’s Princess Di Obituary

Those who have been through bereavement will be acutely aware that “words are not enough…” is a phrase routinely churned out in condolence messages as relatives, friends and distant well wishers struggle to come to terms with the finality of death.

It is a phrase at once cliched and truthful, and one peculiarly suited to the sudden, crushing death of Diana, Princess of Wales. For here was a woman whose occasional public utterances few among her millions of admirers around the world will be able to recall. Here was a princess whose ability to convey intense meaning through look, gesture and body language was at the route of her legendary charm.

Back in 1980 when 19 year old Diana Spencer was revealed as the girlfriend of Prince Charles, it was the shy, slow upward movement of her eyelids that caught the attention of a world immediately captivated by her faltering first steps into an ultimately doomed public life.

Over the years we became accustomed to the other signs of emotion that Diana did not need words to express: the careful nod that showed intense interest in victims of land mines or AIDS, the tilt of the head that said she got the joke and most of all the smile that glittered with angelic promise.

Amazingly she kept the smile intact throughout the years of private pain and public humiliation, forever providing an example of human hope in the face of cruel fate. Her life reads as one long litany of emotional shocks. Aged six her parents divorced. Bad enough for most kids, but in Diana’s case made more traumatic when her grandmother – her mother’s own mother – sided with her father in the bitter custody battle that followed.

She often cried herself to sleep during her childhood, her younger brother cradled in her arms as the cold adult world seemed to shut them out. That feeling of alienation was to resurface later following Diana’s marriage to Charles in 1981. There were brief moments of happiness, such as when Diana gave birth to William in 1982. But these were few and far between, even if in public the Princess appeared to be living out a 20th century fairy tale. Receiving little guidance form the older royals on how to handle her new way of life and becoming aware of her husband’s long running affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, Diana plunged into despair. Typically, the despair eventually took on a physical, visible form as a worried world watched her shed countless pounds in weight.

In 1992 the marriage- a sham since the birth of the couple’s second son, Harry, in 1984 – was over. From that point Diana struggled to find a convincing etheral role. But her search for fulfilment itself, and the desire evident in her eyes to learn from those blighted by war and disease made her all the more a modern woman. She had a smile for everyone even, at times, for the jackals who hounded her to the end. The millions of words already written about her death cannot begin to fully express the sense of desolation shared by the world. But the recollection of that smile, at least, is enough to unite us all in grief.

– David Clee