In memory of Diana, a woman of substance

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

Before long, Princess Diana will enter into legend. Millions of words will be written about her, but the woman I knew was much more than a fashion plate, an icon or even a princess. She was a person who, like so many of us, worked to raise her children, shape her identity and use her own special gifts to make a difference in the world. Since her tragic death last weekend, I've been thinking about what she meant to me and to all of us.

I first met Diana at official ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of D-Day in June 1994. Shortly afterward, she told a mutual friend that she wanted to talk with me. I was eager to get to know the woman behind the dazzling smile. But, given our busy schedules, it took months to arrange a meeting. We finally got together in October of that year for a luncheon in her honor at the British Embassy in Washington. During the meal, we sat near one another -- and at a table with Colin Powell and Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador. They are both charmers who could take anyone's mind off her troubles. Diana bantered throughout the lunch, and then, after bidding goodbye to the other guests, we met privately.

We talked of the challenges of public life and the struggle to protect our children from the scrutiny of the world. She told me of her new hopes and plans for using her position to focus attention on the needs of suffering people. Although she seemed vulnerable and unsure about the direction her life was taking, I sensed in her a reservoir of resilience and determination that would help her take charge of her own life and help others, despite great obstacles.

Over the next few years, we stayed in touch. I saw Diana for the last time in June of this year, when she was visiting Washington to highlight her campaign to ban anti-personnel land mines. Over tea in the Map Room of the White House, she spoke passionately about her recent trip to Angola and her upcoming one to Bosnia. We shared our thoughts about the progress being made worldwide in the fight against AIDS, and I described my impressions of the efforts to end forced prostitution in Thailand, a place she planned to visit in November. I kidded her that the upcoming auction of her gowns for charity was the smartest closet-cleaning strategy ever devised.

And we talked, as always, about our children. She brought me up to date on her sons William and Harry -- how quickly they were growing and how she was working to provide them with childhoods as normal as possible. She asked me about Chelsea's college plans and wanted to know more about the American university system.

Our time together passed too quickly. We walked out into the ground floor corridor, sometimes called the Hall of First Ladies, where I introduced her to the excited teenage daughter of a family staying with us. A White House photographer took our picture standing in front of the portrait of one of my predecessors from more than a century ago, Frances Cleveland. Like Diana, she was a young bride who quickly found herself drawing on her own reserves of grace and poise as she became the obsession of a national media that tracked her every move. I will always be struck by the poignancy of that photograph.

Diana and I hugged goodbye. I watched her walk away a more outwardly confident and effective young woman than the one I had met three years before. I was impressed by her courage and persistence in getting up and going on whenever life knocked her to the mat. And I was delighted that she appeared happier and more at peace with herself.

I will miss seeing her, miss hearing the pride in her voice as she talked of her sons, miss listening to her accounts of the people she tried to help, and miss watching her build a life of integrity on her own terms.

I am reminded of what she once said about the "disease" of not being loved. What she meant was that the absence of love could make anyone less than fully human. I hope all who mourn her passing will honor her memory by reaching out and bringing love and comfort to all who suffer. Few, if any of us, will ever look as beautiful on the outside as she did, but all of us can strive to develop that inner beauty of the heart and soul that she valued and understood was more lasting and important.

-- Creators Syndicate