Our gracious Queen is gone.
Like millions of other people she has been “my” Queen all of my life. She was always there, mostly in the background of my life, but still there.
When I started school her picture was front and centre on the front wall so we could look at it while we sang “God Save The Queen”. I thought she was so beautiful, with her white dress and blue sash, and that crown was the best. To me she was the perfect picture of a Queen because in my young mind a Queen was supposed to be beautiful.
The majority of my ancestry is British and my grandfather would tell us that she was the Queen and should be held in highest regard because of that and not because of what she looked like.
At Christmas the turkey would be put into the oven then nothing else would be done until after the Queen’s Christmas message, and during this message there was to be no playing or talking. We had to actually listen to the message.
I always liked the idea that she was a fellow dog and horse lover. When the RCMP gave her one of their beautiful black horses I thought it was the perfect gift for a perfect Queen. I felt so proud when they started saying that it was her favourite horse.
She smiled a lot, but then she probably thought she had to with the camera on her all the time. She had a very nice smile but it would get even nicer when she was watching something that she really enjoyed. You could always tell when she had made a witty remark or told a joke because then there would be a twinkle in her eyes. Somehow you just knew that she had a wicked sense of humour and I wished we could have seen more of it.
She was intelligent and liked learning new things. When she would be on a tour of a new factory or business she was always asking questions and really listening to the answers.
I know being a Queen is not all smiles and jokes. She went through many hard times with her country, wars and recessions, and times when the people would be angry at her for some reason or another.
There must have been hundreds of times during her long reign when she would have to leave her family and personal life and go do whatever it was that the people of her country were asking her to do.
The world will not be the same without her.
R.I.P Queen Elizabeth II.
by Lois Perepelitz
