Princess Di

Thirteen years ago, my daughter was born in England on the day of the biggest funeral the world had seen since they laid John F Kennedy to rest.

Every television featured only one show: mourning for Princess Diana.

As the funeral cortege processed, so did my labor. The midwives disappeared frequently from our room to watch the Princes walking to the cathedral behind their mother.

My daughter came into the world, a beautiful light for our lives, while that meteoric life that Princess Diana had led, went out.

Scouring the shops, trying to find a bouquet for his wife, my husband could find only a few wilted chrysanthemums, the only bunch of posies left.

I distinctly remember three things about that day: out the window of the delivery room, the sky appeared to be fuchsia to me, although when I focused, it turned back to turquoise. As soon as my daughter was lifted up, she opened her eyes so wide, as if to take in all the world, and the first person she saw was her father. And that night the clouds formed themselves into giant heads, as if people had come to look down on the precious events of the day, and look in at the new lives in the hospital too. It thundered, and rained, and cleared up, and the giant heads in the sky drifted over it all.

We don't get a Princess Diana very often in this world. Some people will internally say to that "Thank God." Before she died she took flack from every pundit with a soapbox; the day after she died they recanted, or had to keep their opinions to themselves.

Only during the flood of national mourning could we all see that Diana had become what she had wanted to be - the Queen of Hearts. As cheesy as that title was, as close a reference as it was to 'tarts', she opened up the heart of a nation known for its curmudgeons.