Good Grief! - by Annie McQueen

 Good Grief!

by guest coulmnist Annie McQueen

I love LA. I hate LA. I go back and forth between these two a lot. Mostly weekly and sometimes daily (if I’ve had a tough day). We all know the pros and cons of living here, so far away from loved ones back in GB etc but these past few weeks have really emphasized the ‘cons’ for me, maybe it has you, too. When I woke up on September the 8th to the news that doctors were concerned for the health of The Queen, my first thought was ‘this is it, she’s going’. I supposed that actually, she had probably already gone, and soon enough the announcement came on multiple news outlets that HM QEII had passed away.

I burst into tears. Unexpectedly so. I was actually a little bit embarrassed in front of my husband. I was instantly overcome with a surge of emotion, a sadness that I’ve only ever experienced with the loss of loved ones and family pets. Why? I didn’t know her, never met her and she was representative of an establishment that were responsible for so much pain suffering in many countries and cultures.

I can only explain my grief for the Queen I’d never met like this; I think I was grieving for my childhood. My young adulthood in London. The 80’s and 90’s when my Grandparents were still alive. Visiting them on a Sunday afternoon for dinner. Listening to the Top Gun sound track on the way there and falling asleep in the car on the way back. Because the death of The Queen to me, signifies the true ending of an era. Obviously not just for people my age who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, for 4 maybe 5 generations of a nation who grew up in the 50’, 60’s and 70’s with her as their Queen. And what exactly does that mean, on a day to day basis? Not much really as, like I said, I never new her. But what she stood for in terms of her personal and work ethic, her internal mantra, was an example of real ‘British-ness’ which I feel has ended with her passing. We no longer have the stiff upper lip we used to. We moan and complain much more about trivial things and are much more entitled. We dramatize everything to a degree on par with the Americans. Keeping Calm and Carrying on is becoming an adage only good for t- shirts and coasters. Our common sense isn’t that common any more and the PC Police is making taking away our British banter and sarcasm of which we are known and loved for.

So I think that’s what I was grieving for, in that quick moment of raw, unexpected emotion, The Past. My past. Our past. Not 2 days later our new Sovereign met our new Prime Minister. Huge changes to process. So as I grieved for the above over the next couple of days, feeling very nostalgic, watching the Royals grieve for their mother, grandmother, auntie, cousin, etc knowing how they feel. I’d never felt so far away from home and disconnected from being a Brit. I was awestruck at the outpouring of love, from all generations. Hundreds of thousands of people paying their respects to someone that they probably hadn’t met either. Pictures of flowers, Paddington Bear stuffed toys filled the screen with every article I read.

It was pure love.
Love, on a scale almost unimaginable. Then I realized everything I was grieving for, was because I had loved and been loved. I loved having a Queen, I loved her speeches on Christmas Day. I loved singing ‘God Save The Queen’. I loved that the world loved our Queen, and were envious of us having her! I loved my childhood, I had loved my Grandparents and how they made me feel. I loved my Dad so so much and was so loved in return. This grief and nostalgia was a good thing; it showed me how much I love and just how much I have been loved. ‘The harder we love, the harder we grieve’ and ‘grief is the price we pay for love’ are both so very true, and I’ve realized that no matter where I am in the world, I don’t need to be in Britain to feel the love and the connection, It’s in a pocket in my heart which I carry with me every single day and I hope you do too.

Today, I love LA :)