3:31 AM, EDT, 8/31/97

Someone has challeneged me to explain why anyone should care about the hours-old death of Diana, Princess of Wales. I couldn't explain it in short soundbites, and thus, this essay can maybe explain my grief.

I miss Diana, already. I'm sure this will surprise many of my friends; I'm not entirely known for being particularly sensitive about the plight of anyone who isn't a cat. But in Diana, I had found someone who I admired, in a quiet and private way, as Diana herself was quiet and private.

It's hard to explain how deeply she affected my early life; I was a young girl in a Commonwealth country, and she was our fantasy. From kindergarten teacher to Princess, there was no finer thing, even to me, the tomboy. I was in Newfoundland, visiting my cousins, and we girls watched the wedding avidly, and reenacted it for the rest of the vacation. As I grew up, and as Diana grew up in the public eye (being only 26, I know that, at 19, she was not truly adult, and that couldn't have been easy for her, thrust into the public eye as a Princess when most kids are going on ski trips and backpacking through Europe and exploring their identity as adults), I felt akin to her, in some way that I can't explain but even tonight, I feel bone-deep.

She was so simply and honestly caring, so open and so tragic. Tricked into a marriage that was a sham, to a man who never truly loved her, she survived, and blossomed from a shy 19-year-old bride to a wonderful, worldly, bold woman, unafraid to hold people with AIDS in a time when people fought to keep those people out of schools, out of industry, and out of the public eye. She made that impossible, and raised so much attention and money for her many causes, from breast cancer to her recent work in the Red Cross campaign to ban the use of land mines, she fought for her ideals, and used her wealth, beauty and fame to bring attention to so many causes that could have been overlooked in these times. She was born to privilege and riches, and, instead of resting on that, as so many have, she felt a draw to help those who were not born to that privilege.

Most tragic, though, is how happy she had seemed these past few months. Such a capacity for joy she had, and how she had shone of late! Finally, she had found what we had hoped was real love, and the world was happy for her; I wished her every happiness she could get; and wherever she has moved on to, I wish her all the joy that she might have felt in her life.