In Heaven post we say goodbye to those who have come to go in 2022. Journalist Tine Peeters writes a letter to Elizabeth of Windsor, the British Queen who died on September 8. She was 96 years old.
Dear Queen Elizabeth,
Tom Lanoye, the best writer in Belgium, began his latest book with the words: ‘I imagined the day on which I will be buried very differently.’ Did you too, I wonder, when you looked down at that grandiose funeral procession in the streets of London? Or were you quite satisfied? After all, you came up with – a bit sinister – the scenario for your burial.
I would like to reassure you: your burial was followed with reverence worldwide. You don’t have to worry about your estate either. You were Grandma England and you always will be to your countrymen. The last remnant of The Great Empire. A British empress who loved dry martinis and Sunday roasts. You were a bit expensive, yes, but mostly your spectators got their money’s worth. Especially when Paddington bear came to tea or you jumped out of a helicopter with 007.
The whole world remembers you as the somewhat unworldly woman who always waved. Always with that same affable smile, always those deux-piècekes in candy colours. Just like a solar-powered doll made flesh. Secretly you found all those pomp and circumstance but nothing. You would much rather go hiking in Scotland in your khaki boots or clean the stables of your beloved horses. Then sometimes dove between the hay bales with the equerry, like The Crown suggests? And while that series comes up, can you reveal what was true and what wasn’t in each episode? After all, you know best what happened in your own life. And in that of your naughty one next of kin.
I don’t know if you can read the tabloids up there, but your (grand)children will keep hanging out down here. The Grimaldis of Monaco used to be the laughingstock of all European royals, with princesses falling into the arms of circus performers and drunken German princes. Now your offspring rivals them (cheap pun intended).
Charles wasted his first moments as king by becoming angry because a pen was not working properly. Your son turned out to be a spoiled child of 73. Certainly not a worthy successor to you, who were stoicism personified. Then his wife does better: she no longer makes a fashion faux pas, no more gasping phone calls comparing her to a tampon. But, and this is really not possible in these woke times, Camilla would have made a comment about the skin color of her plus grandchild. Couldn’t your PR army drill her a little better in diversity?
Grandson Harry and his wife Meghan are already completely out of step. They shot a six-part documentary for Netflix in which they complain about all the injustices that were done to them at Buckingham Palace. So those two don’t get along right away unique colloquium. It splits your beloved kingdom into Camp Harry and Camp Willy. Even wrinkle-free Kate can’t seem to pick up the pieces between her husband and his brother.
If they all don’t start taking better care of themselves – I’m forgetting your son Andrew, the real villain of that motley crew – the book will be The Queen and I by Sue Townsend still true. In it, the United Kingdom turns into a republic and the royal family lives in a deprived neighborhood nicknamed ‘Hell Close’. All your family members get off track there (even more). Can’t you give a silent hint to that brood of yours? Quick, before New Year’s? Otherwise there will be another annus horribilis for the House of Windsor and a funeral for the entire monarchy before the end of this century.
(‘Hemelpost’, after an idea of ’HP/De Tijd’)