Remembering Queen Elizabeth

I was in the middle of a telephone call last week when my husband came to my office door and held up his cellphone, a news site's headline declaring that Queen Elizabeth II had just passed away. We'd been wondering about her health since that morning, when early news reports said that her family had been summoned to Balmoral and that doctors were "concerned" for her health. I know that if the Lord delays his return, we will all face death eventually, but honestly, I just didn't want the Queen to die.

Why? As an American, I'm sure I don't feel the loyalty her subjects do, but there was so much to admire about Queen Elizabeth. She was referred to in some documentary last week as an "accidental" queen, since she never would have had the job if her uncle hadn't abdicated. Yet as a Christian, I believe there are no accidents, and I can't help thinking that God handpicked her to serve for the time that she did. Could anyone have possibly done a better job of serving in post–World War II England? I can't think of a soul who could have.

Sure, she was beautiful and elegant and had that bit of royal fairy dust that all little girls want, yet I got the impression that duty—to God, country, and family—is what motivated her most. I'm such an introvert that when I think of having to go to all those meetings and grand openings and hospitals and official visits with my hand stuck out to complete strangers, it makes me want to crawl in bed and pull the covers up over my head.

Of course, the Queen's fondness for afternoon tea and Earl Grey was something I always enjoyed reading about. Here's a photo from a book I read years ago, The Royal Shopping Guide, and it pictured the young Princess Elizabeth taking tea with her family. So many of my happiest teatime memories involve, in a very real sense, the Royal Family. On my 50th birthday, my husband and I had tea at Fortnum and Mason and enjoyed Coronation Chicken tea sandwiches using the recipe said to have been created in honor of her coronation. I hosted a tea for friends when William and Kate married, and a girlfriend came over the morning of Harry and Meghan's wedding for a light tea as well.

I was pondering which one quality I admired most about the Queen, and I realized it wasn't her sense of duty, profound as that has been. I value loyalty above many, many other qualities, and she by all accounts remained a loyal, trustworthy sovereign to the British people from the moment she came to the throne seventy years ago. She was so honorable, in fact, that I heard that one of her former prime ministers, Tony Blair, claimed the only two people he could count on not to leak information were his wife and his Queen. I'll bet that, like me, many of you, too, have admired the Queen and were sad to hear of her death. If you're a fellow royal watcher, what will you miss about Queen Elizabeth?