OF QUEENS and KINGS and the CHESS BOARD of LIFE
Saturday, September 10, 2022
Most of us think of kings and queens and other folksy names from a regal court, tend to be talking about chess or cards or the latest Netflix series …
On the other hand, and much in the news lately and in recent days is the royals, not all the headline and tabloid gossip, but about the death and mourning of Queen Elizabeth II, who died the other day, or her firstborn Charles, who instantly became King Charles III, upon her passing.
The world of media frenzy, pomp and circumstance will take over, and a big funeral and steps toward coronation ceremonies will follow. Like so many who’ve lived their lives only knowing one British Monarch and having seen the son-in-waiting all these decades have a wide range of thoughts, sympathies or unrestrained opinions about a rich-family obsolete construct of a monarchy. That isn’t going to change right now, but a change in some form will always happen.
I’m inclined to think about the experience of many contemporaries who are having losses of parents or near-loss moments. I can empathize with them much more than royals, but they do have many things in common. I’ve found from my conversations that most of us have similar experiences. No matter how imminent the person’s downturn or death might have been, it is a shock that lasts well beyond the sudden news. Time stops a bit.
Our minds focus on immediate things that must be done, and memories of a fully lived life flood and overtake our mind without warning, come and go without notice or warning signs, and rarely come at ideal (if there is such a thing) moments.
We all lose moms, dads, grandparents, friends and neighbours. Most of them are not famous, don’t have their faces on money, and don’t travel in fancy ways surrounded by bodyguards and press hounds.
Yet they all live and die – and then in death, they all live and are loved from a new perspective amid smiles and tears. Their pain offers little immediate gain unless the person is suffering or in pain, and then there is immediate relief. Not so much right away for those left behind.
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