A tribute written by Boris Johnson on the death of Queen Elizabeth II was read out by Huw Edwards on the BBC last night and, for the first time since hearing news of her death earlier in the evening, I cried.
Beside me, the dogs watched with wide-eyed concern as I tore out tissue after tissue from a box, pressing them to my face. I accepted their offer of paws until, unable to think straight and worried about traumatizing them, I went to bed.
But I couldn’t sleep.
I thought about Elizabeth Windsor and how she’d been the young, glamorous queen I’d learnt to grow up respecting as my parents and grandparents had. How she always had a smile. How she was always so impeccably dressed; how nicely she spoke to us on Christmas Day. How she loved her corgis, her children; grandchildren, greatgrandchildren.
I’d never met this ninety-six-year-old woman and yet I’d cried.
Then I recalled another time I’d cried at the loss of a virtual stranger. The Head Teacher of a school I’d once worked at who was retiring and who I’d known nothing about. Although, through the years I’d become accustomed to his presence, been reassured by his constancy; depended on, and respected his firm but fair character.
His send-off, beginning with cake at break-time, had continued that evening, though social anxiety prevented my attendance. And when I’d arrived at school the next morning something felt different.
I felt different.
I was so relieved when my hours were done and I could pack up and go home. Because over time, I’d felt myself becoming more and more off-balance; hollow, on the verge of panic; destabilised to the point that even before I’d driven out of the car park, I’d sat and sobbed over my car’s steering wheel for a reason I couldn’t identify.
But now I can.
As a person with Autism and ADHD, changes—however insignificant they might seem—affect me, have always affected me deeply and on a visceral level. As I hadn’t known about this at the time of the Head’s departure, I’d simply assumed (as I always did in those dark days) that I was either premenstrual, tired or hungry. I was so used to clamouring for legitimate reasons to explain why I felt the ways I did.
So, although my sobbing last night appeared to align itself with that of other members of the public and their own outpourings of deep sadness at the Queen having died, for me it began and ended there: on the sofa. With the tissues. And the dogs.
Today, my only sadness is a continuation of the terrible sadness I felt way, way before Her Majesty’s death, and which is categorically not for her, but for her so-called ‘subjects’. Many of whom remain living as enforced, colonized members of the commonwealth countries she presided over for decades without concerning herself over their struggles and miseries let alone alleviating this suffering, which with her wealth she could so easily have done a thousand times over.
And along with feeling sad for the people of these countries who’ve had to endure lavish and trite ‘visits’ by their monarch who’d even had paperwork drawn up ensuring minority/black people would never hold a position in her offensively luxurious homes, I feel sad for the subjects of her own country, many who are currently having to calculate whether or not they can afford to warm their homes this winter, let alone buy presents for their loved ones.
And now, not content with the news channels spewing out the same saccharin verbiage on a loop ever since the announcements began last night, my own social media feeds have been full of people I thought I knew, speaking of this privileged stranger as though she was someone they knew personally who will be sorely missed.
Needless to say, I have enjoyed ‘hiding’ all such posts from my feed and relishing posts from the remaining pages I follow which are devoid of any mention of the royal family and have instead been making me giggle.
Because I don’t know about you, but that’s what I need right now.