Making a pilgrimage to lay flowers for the Queen and our collective loss.

I stood in a local supermarket early yesterday morning choosing flowers to lay at Green Park next to Buckingham Palace for the Queen.  I wanted to ask someone for advice or reassurance.  Could I just take a small bunch of carnations that spoke to me, in bright pink or yellow?  Surely for the Queen, I should take a specially made bouquet, with exactly the flowers that she loved?  I reasoned that there would be already a lot of flowers there and that a small, biodegradable gesture would be perfectly acceptable.  

Clutching my pink carnations, I followed a number of other people from Victoria Station making their way up to Hyde Park Corner.  Having not been to London since the pandemic began, it already felt strange to be among crowds, traffic and police.  Thankfully I had arrived early and there was plenty of space to walk along the pavement.  Turning into Green Park, however, I suddenly saw hundreds of people all making the same pilgrimage to the flowers.  Drawn by the same force that had brought me, a feeling of wanting to "do something" or to share in this unique moment in history.  Taking some deep breaths, I prepared to stand in a queue for an hour or so, to leave my flowers in the assigned area.  Yet by some miracle, there appeared to be no queue at this quieter corner and before I knew it, I was inside.

Before me were more flowers that I have ever seen together, in long endless lines and in circles around trees.  It was beautiful and celebratory yet sombre all at the same time.  Still clutching my flowers, I removed the plastic wrapping and found a space to lay them.  They seemed tiny and insignificant yet in this memorial garden they were part of something vast, a piece of collective grief and mourning for our beloved Queen.  All around me, more people were arriving, thoughtful flowers were being laid and we all shuffled along the spaces in between, pausing to admire certain messages and pictures that stood out.  The atmosphere was quiet and reflective.  

Escaping the crowds, I walked around the edge of the flower garden, noticing all the majestic trees that had become sacred holders of offerings, messages, flowers and I marveled at how many people had come.  In these peaceful corners, I could hear the trees gently rustle and smell the aroma of the thousands of flowers.  Something about the steadiness of the trees, standing strong with so much emotion around them made me feel comforted.

The strange thing I have experienced about my own recent grief through the loss of my father a year ago is that I have felt alone.  Grief has been my companion, often unwanted for much of the last year.  It is something so difficult to describe, hard to sit with, tricky to feel and challenging to trust that it will ever pass.  Many times I have wondered is it me that feels so much as a sensitive person and is how I feel normal? Should I have shrugged it off by now, or become numb or stoic?  No self-help book seems to help and often irritates me when it talks about loss being like "waves" and I wish it felt that easy...

But standing with all the hundreds of others in Green Park, I had this epiphany.  My feelings of loss for the Queen are not alone, they are shared.  They may be felt in a gentle, subtle way or in a strong, powerful way.  But the feelings all count and that fills me with some solace during this unprecedented week of mourning.  And sometimes words cannot explain something so personal as grief.  Which is why a small bunch of pink carnations represents something so much greater than them.  Feelings of loss, gratitude and respect.  

 

In memory and honour of Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ