September, 1997

Well, Princess Diana will be missed, a young woman of great charm and an icon of her times if there ever was one. But having said that and having read and re-read every detail of her last month among us, I am left with musings that speak more to the timing of her death than the fact itself.

For, having been snatched from us in her thirty-fourth year and prior to rather than after her remarriage, the princess has assured herself of an immortal place in our memories, alongside John Kennedy, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon. We needen't watch her grow old, remarry badly and perhaps for a number of times, in essence do the things that most of us are bound to do given enough time. The lessons are there. Jackie Kennedy gleamed ever so much more brightly than Jacqueline Onassis and there was something of those long-lens shots among the Greek islands that smacked of a national heritage being dragged around by its hair. It didn't last all that long at any rate, but Jacqueline was a long time winning her way back to Jackie. Even so she found the price was seclusion, a lifetime behind darkened limouisine windows and sunglasses.

When speculating on the mystique of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall made the observation that we never were forced to watch him grow old. There are those who do that beautifully, Bacall among them, but it's tough. Tough to be a Jimmy Stewart or Katherine Hepburn, we like our icons to live up to the billing and are mercilous when they fail in the human ways of human lives. Liz Taylor and Marlon come to mind.

Princess Diana has had her mountains to climb as well, what with eating disorders, unmarrying a man very nearly impossible to unmarry, raising her sons with values that were her own rather than institutional and in the meanwhile living a life that brought her satisfaction. By all accounts and accounts are all we're allowed, it was beginning to work for her. We are told that this man with whom she died made a difference in her life, that his family welcomed her with a warmth she had never known in family life, not as a child or a princess. We needn't be told that she was fast becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as the queen of hearts of her nation, for the evidence is there.

But then what?

The then what could only have been an endless struggle with reality in an unrealistic world. Her every win would have to be taken, as none would be allowed and each in some small or large way must find itself posted at the expense of the crown. One can argue long and hard about the relevancy of the crown in a modern world, but it is there and the public patience is not for the long battle. The long battle was sure to pay a price too heavy for either side.

Diana is gone, gone a winner with flashing smile intact, with her credentials impeccably and almost unbelievably in order, with her life perhaps for the first time firmly and satisfactorily in control. Timing is everything. She will be missed, but the young princess need never be an embarrassment.

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