“She was a silver thread through my life.” So said a woman on the Mall interviewed on TV after the late Queen’s death, capturing a common sentiment. And silver became gold, then platinum. A thread which felt it really could go on forever.
As many have expressed, the unbroken presence of Queen Elizabeth over 70 years has given invaluable continuity to our lives. She was simply always there.
An old fairy tale tells of a thread that was unbreakable, but was laced as a daisy chain to appear ordinary and unassuming. Queen Elizabeth had no pretentions, yet held so much together. Through times of immense social change and often political turbulence, she quietly gave strength to the fabric of the United Kingdom, and to the Commonwealth in its transition from empire. As world leaders have testified, she helped strengthen international fabric more widely too.
We have now sadly discovered the end of the thread. The bobbin has finally run out. I write this ahead of the funeral, when public expressions of love and gratitude for the late Queen and grief for her loss are being expressed in profuse and profound ways. The loss will reverberate for a long, long time. We are indeed at an historic moment, the close of an era.
The thread of our new monarch has been tied instantly to the old. And neatly so, by means of the historic, televised rituals, and the steps taken by our new King Charles to make the transition seamless. How will the fabric change with this new thread? What will be its pattern? Its strength? It will undoubtedly be different. Fear of the future is part of grief’s fabric.
What of the late Queen’s own thread – the golden thread through her life? On the deepest level, she herself related it as being her faith in God, her commitment to follow the example of service she saw in Jesus Christ. Would she know we’d be saddened by her death? Humbly, yes. Would she wish us to be anxious for the future? No, for she saw the ‘King of kings’ as the source of comfort, hope and strength for the world.
Ma’am, we have been privileged to live in your reign. Thank you for all you gave, and for all you were.
