Death of a princess
Some events are so momentous they remain indelibly stamped in the collective world memory bank. John F. Kennedy's assassination. The Challenger disaster. Chernobyl. Added to this tragic list is the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a car accident in France yesterday.
The world has reacted with understandable shock and grief. In the 17 years since the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles, Diana had become the world's most photographed and written about woman. Her every step -- and misstep -- became the fodder of tabloid journalists hungry to satisfy the global public's interest. In perverse irony, Diana and her companion Dodi Al Fayed were reportedly trying to avoid photographers when the crash occurred.
It was a pitiful end to an often tumultuous life. Her parents divorced acrimoniously when she was young and there was little truth to the lauded royal fairy-tale romance with Charles. Nobody, except perhaps Diana herself, was naive about the clinical vetting process involved in choosing the future queen. In a cruel admission in his official biography, Charles admitted he had never loved his wife.
Diana battled her own demons, including eating disorders, in the harsh glare of the public eye. She entered into a bizarre love-hate relationship with the media, which she would denounce for making her life hell, but also manipulate for her own ends.
She appeared to have found a new lease on life after her divorce. As in her marriage, Diana remained a crusader for her own favorite causes, which included AIDS research and the outlawing of land mine use. These have lost a tireless and influential supporter.
Her death invites many questions. What will become of the British royal family with the loss of its most popular member? How will her death affect her young sons? Will there be a backlash against the notorious paparazzi and their often monstrous invasions of privacy in search of a news scoop?
Only time will yield the answers to these questions. More immediate is trying to place Diana's legacy. As she herself would have been the first to admit, she was not perfect. She suffered from the foibles of vanity, selfishness and insecurity. But she balanced these failings with concern, compassion and a commitment to helping the less fortunate.
Tragically, Diana was cut down in her prime, and we will never know what more she had to give. But, she had already done much in her short life to achieve her avowed goal of becoming a "queen of hearts" to the world's people. This, perhaps, is her most fitting epitaph.