“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Those words were spoken by Queen Elizabeth II. And haven’t we grieved the passing of a wonderful woman and incredible monarch.
I have just had the total pleasure of spending four days in London to say farewell and thanks to Her Majesty.
I met the Queen when I was seven in Brisbane and I gave her a handpicked bunch of flowers from my grandma’s garden.
There was something Santa-like about the woman and her 70-year reign.
The Queen just got on with it.
In times of war and peace, she was always just there with that kind face and sense of calm – even when having to deal with Andrew and Harry and their silly behaviours.
Not even the royals can pick their family.
My friend Melisa and I travelled for 37 hours via Singapore and Paris airports to get to London, to see history unfold.
Airfares skyrocketed in price the hour her passing was announced. We booked a flight that felt like we were in cages, and secured a hotel we later nicknamed ‘the crack den’.
But all this and a bad case of jet-lag did nothing to take away a single drop of enthusiasm.
We went to Buckingham Palace at 4am for a front-row spot to watch the melancholy funeral convoy.
We met fabulous Poms who could not believe we had flown all that way to pay our respects.
We cried when the coffin travelled slowly past us, and held our breath at the heartbreaking sight of King Charles, his siblings and William and Harry. They looked broken.
Melisa and I had gin and tonics to salute our beloved Queen that night and a pub meal of fish and chips.
We woke at dawn the next day to go to see Windsor Castle where the Queen lived and will rest.
And then it was time to tackle The Queue: that crazy London line you had to join and conquer to see our monarch lying in state in Westminster Hall.
The line was a test of our physical and emotional substance but we just kept putting one foot in front of another.
It was worth the 15-hour, freezing 16-kilometre walk with barriers and infrastructure for airport-style queuing and more than 500 portable toilets along the route.
I was completely overcome with emotion when I stood two metres away from Her Majesty’s coffin. It felt for a few seconds as if it was just the two of us.
Rest well, my Queen.
