Teach Your Children Well

Yesterday at the funeral services for Queen Elizabeth II the world watched and British citizens, along with dignitaries and leaders from all over the world, came to pay their respects and honour the Queen. For little more than 70 years when anyone referred to “The Queen” everyone knew who was being referred to…there were and are many royal monarches in the world but there was only one true “Queen”.

But she was also a mother, grandmother and great grandmother…Gan Gan as she was known to her great grandchildren. Some people felt it was inappropriate for children to be at a funeral…”They are just too young”, some wrote or said on television in hopes that the Prince and Princess Wales, William and Catherine, would choose not to bring their children to this funeral…not to expose them “to all the grief”.

But death too is a part of life and William and Catherine chose wisely, we think, to allow their children to experience not only the grief of those mourning their Queen, but to see and experience the respect and honour and gratitude she was being shown as she was laid to rest. Some life lessons need to be experienced to be learned. Words at a time like this are not always enough. So Charlotte and George saw first hand the love and adoration the world felt for their Queen, and for their Gan Gan, for the life of service she had given and was now being thanked by grateful throngs. And they too in experiencing this tribute took in the lesson of showing that love and respect by watching the adults in their family demonstrate what grief and love, what honour and gratitude look like.

We came across two video clips, tiny glimpses of these lessons learned today by the next generation. In the first, George and Charlotte are standing outside of Westminster Abbey with the women of their family. As the ladies curtsy to the Queen’s coffin as it passes them, the children realize and immediately Charlotte too curtsies and George bows his head. They weren’t told to show respect, they watched respect being shown and then followed suit to show that love and respect themselves. Lesson taught.

In the second clip it is Charlotte and George in the foreground outside at Windsor before entering St. George’s Chapel for the second and more intimate funeral service of the day. As the coffin passes them you can hear Charlotte whisper to George “You need to bow.” Lesson learned.

Teach you children well…indeed they are. No words could have explained or done justice to the majesty of this grand ceremony and outpouring of a life so well lived. A promise of a 21 year old girl kept…a life lived entirely in service to her people, in fact to all people who came to see her as a symbol of stability and comfort and steadfastness. Here is a BBC video montage of the day and the honouring and celebration of the life of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

May she rest in peace and rise one day in glory!