If we think the media coverage of the obsequies is overbearing, then imagine what it’s going to be like when Elizabeth passes away. Personally, what struck me most forcefully amid all of the fandango – see photo below for the Channel Nine news desk on the Saturday: a farrago of kitsch made more convincing by the sleazy reputation of the outlet bearing this gift – were Charles’ expressions of sadness.
“My dear papa,” he said, was loved and missed. And this from a man who’d been forced by that same father to avoid marrying the woman he loved. Instead Charles married Lady Diana Spencer and we know what tragedy ensued as a result. An incalculable burden for their two sons and a general sense of misgiving in the hearts of millions of people living in the UK and in Commonwealth countries.
Just imagine how much better the world would be without this shared source of pain and suffering. An Philip was largely responsible. Perhaps this is why he offered to walk beside Harry and William behind their mother’s slow-moving catafalque.
So, words of acclaim for everyone’s go-to embarrassing uncle fall flat in my ears. Instead, I hear the howls of unshriven souls. I hear inside me the traces of an echoing cavern of fear and loathing, a place where memories go to be processed before emerging into dreams. And I see the multitudes in public unburdening themselves of the same weight as I carry, as Charles carries, and as every child carries who has been governed when young by a tyrannical parent.
And we won’t talk about any of this out of respect for the dead. Nothing changes. The pattern will repeat. There is no reckoning. Charles needs permission to open up his suffering heart. He needs someone to take his hand and lead him out of that dark cavern. He needs us to free him from suffering, but we are too busy chewing each others’ arms off in our unceasing quest for dominance. We are all Philip.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth ages and her body declines in potency and vigour, approaching its mortal terminus like a train slowing down as it approaches the platform of death. There, generations yet unborn wait to greet the monarch. Our sons and grandsons. Our daughters and granddaughters. Our very flesh and blood waits to judge, because if we won’t remember they will.
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