Princess Diana Celebration 1

I grew up a Princess Diana fan. I remember my Mom waking me up on the morning of Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding to Prince Charles so that I could watch the wedding on television. It was incredibly like the fairy tales I loved to read and have read to me, and it all made a big impression on this 7-year-old. From her glass carriage to her 25-foot wedding dress train to the shiny tiara on her forehead…I was mesmerized. From that day on, I collected newspaper articles, magazines, books, etc. all about the royal family and Princess Diana.

I started reading the history of the royal family—you know, stuff about who begat who and who married whom. For a few years running, I was the “go-to-girl” at school as far as the person who had lots of information on the royal family and tons of useless trivia on family history, what Princess Diana liked to wear, who her favorite designer was, etc.

In college, my interest waned a bit. I had a lot of other things on mind like exams, a work schedule, and the cute guy in my psychology class, but I did keep up with the current status of the royal family as best I could. Throughout my college years just as when I was a young girl, every Christmas morning I would unwrap the gifts under the tree and find a new hardcover book about Princess Diana to add to my collection.

In 1997, I remember quite clearly the night of Princess Diana’s untimely death. I was at my brother’s home in Peru, Indiana, and one of the family members caught a blurb on CNN that there had been unconfirmed reports that Princess Di had been in a car accident. Of course, from then on, I sat glued to the living room television. And days later, my family and I watched her funeral procession together from that same living room.

Since her death, I haven’t really thought about the royal family much. I didn’t get all that wrapped up in the theories and stories that emerged surrounding Diana’s death. I just was sad that a private woman who chose to use her celebrity for humanitarian causes had been lost to the global community that had come to recognize her as the kind and charitable soul she was.