***I’m so sorry my comment section hasn’t been working. I think it’s okay now, so please leave me a note. I miss hearing from all of you!
After a respectful break, I’ll tell you the lighthearted story about the time I’m pretty sure I shared a box of Band-Aids with the Queen.
As the funeral procession passed her favorite pony,"Emma," and her Corgis saw their Queen for the last time, it broke my heart. Elizabeth II was "Our" Queen, because she truly was a worldwide leader. She loved all people in all countries and set an example of kind, dignified leadership.
My 103 year old friend, who very well remembers Queen Elizabeth’s coronation, remarked several times over the last week, “This is why England will prevail and survive, and why America is in trouble. No one here has decency or respect anymore.” She’d shake her fist in the air and say, “We need traditions for a reason! It brings order. Just look at how well the British are conducting themselves.”
And this is yet another hint as to why I am close friends with someone who is over a century old.
Preach it, sister.
My Scottish Presbyterian grandmother would be so happy. The Queen took her last breath as a Presbyterian — or at least that’s the report from “Juicy Ecumenism The Institute on Religion and Democracy,” The question and answer from their website are below.
A reader asks if Queen Elizabeth II died a Presbyterian, as she was on Scottish soil at the time.
"Yes. This is most visibly seen in Elizabeth II’s coffin first being moved to Edinburgh’s (Presbyterian) St. Giles’ Cathedral, rather than the cathedral of the (Anglican) Scottish Episcopal Church. While the (Anglican) Church of England is the state church in England, the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland is the state church in Scotland. The Sovereign technically becomes Presbyterian while in Scotland, in an ecclesial agreement that goes back to the Act of Union enacted in 1707 joining the Scottish and English parliaments into the Parliament of Great Britain.
Unlike in England where the Sovereign is the “Supreme Governor” of the church, the monarch is merely an ordinary member of the Church of Scotland, not the head of the church."
As my Presbyterian friend Laura B. quipped, “Now we know without a doubt she’s in heaven.”
The Scottish piper at the end of the service was hauntingly lovely.
The world is changing, and The Queen's death will mark the end of the world as it was. What did you think of the ceremony?