Prince Harry recounted details of the day he took Meghan Markle to Lady Di’s grave
“Finally, I was bringing home the girl of my dreams to meet Mom,” she recalled
The Duke of Sussex has been very open in recent years about how difficult it was for him to process the death of his mother, Diana Spencer, who after her wedding to Prince Charles III, became known worldwide as Diana of Wales. Diana died in a car accident on August 31, 1997, she was buried on an island located in The Round Oval Lake and access to her grave is forbidden to this day to tourists.
In his memoir, released last January under the name Spare, Harry recalled the first time he took his wife, Meghan Markle, to her mother’s grave. The cathartic visit took place precisely on the previous anniversary of Diana’s death, when the princess celebrated 25 years of death, a figure that had her son, now 38 years old, in shock.
“No visit to this place was easy, but this one… twenty-fifth anniversary. And Meg’s first time. Finally, I was bringing home the girl of my dreams to meet Mom,” Harry begins this anecdote in Spare.
The Duke of Sussex continues to confess that he knelt in front of his mother’s grave, trying to seek advice, but in addition, Meghan also had a private moment with what would have been his mother-in-law.
“We hesitated, hugged, and then I went first. I put flowers on the grave. Meg gave me a moment, and I talked to my mother in my head, told her I missed her, asked for guidance and clarity. Feeling that Meg would want a moment, too, I circled the hedge and scanned the pond. When I returned, Meg was kneeling, with her eyes closed, palms against the stone.”
Back home, Harry shares that he was curious about what Meghan had prayed in front of Diana’s grave, to which the mother of his two children confessed: “Clarity and guidance.”
Recently, Netflix released the documentary Heart of Invictus, which follows the lives of six veterans of the Afghanistan war who try to overcome their physical and mental injuries through a sports competition created by Harry himself. In the second episode of the series, the youngest of Diana of Wales’ children shared more details about what it was like to grieve the death of his mother in a context in which his family turned their backs on him.
“I was never aware of the trauma of losing my mother at such a young age. It was never talked about and I didn’t talk about it (…) What was most difficult for me was that no one around me could help me. I didn’t have that support structure, that network or that expert advice to identify what was really going on with me.”
In 2017, Harry gave an interview in which he recalled with great regret his mother’s funeral, where in addition to having to overcome the loss, the young British royal had to walk a long way behind his mother’s coffin while thousands of cameras followed his every move.
“William and I were 14 and 12 years old when our mother died and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more watched on television. I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. Of course, it would not happen today.”
