Diana Remembered with Loving Words and Tears
A tear ran down the cheek of Prince William as his younger brother, Harry, spoke of their late mother, Diana, during Friday’s noontime service to the late princess at the Guards’ Chapel near Buckingham Palace in London.
The solemn gathering marked the 10th anniversary of Diana’s death and had been organized by her two sons with Prince Charles. Included on the guest list were Queen Elizabeth, Charles and Diana’s friend, Elton John.
Outside the chapel, as has been the case every year on the date Diana died, her admirers gathered. Others, carrying and leaving floral bouquets, poems and photos, congregated outside the gates of Diana’s former home, Kensington Palace.
A prayer written for the memorial service by Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave thanks “for all the memories of her that we treasure still.”
“Her vulnerability and her willingness to reach out to the excluded and forgotten touched us all; her generosity gave hope and joy to many. May she rest in peace where sorrow and pain are banished,” Williams wrote, the Associated Press reports.
Besides readings by William and Harry, who had been only 15 and 12 when their mother died, the service also featured a remembrance from Diana’s sister, Lady Sarah McCorquodale.
“It should be a good occasion and lots of loud hymns. It should be a very sort of simple and nice service,” Prince Harry said in a recent interview as the service approached.
In Paris, where the “People’s Princess,” as Diana had been nicknamed, died in a high-speed car crash alongside her lover, Dodi al-Fayed, several mourners gathered and left bouquets at the tunnel where the fatal incident occurred,.
A note, scrawled on a portrait of Diana in a jeweled crown, read: “10 years already, Oh how I miss you.” It was signed “Monique de Luxembourg.”
