In April of last year, Philip of Edinburgh, inseparable husband of the queen, died. Isabel IIpassed away last Thursday just one year and five months later.
Their marriage lasted 73 years, a very long stage during which, with its ups and downs, they always showed complicity and mutual support. In fact, at his golden wedding anniversary in 1997, the queen said of him: “He has simply been my strength and my support during all these years (…) and I have with him a much bigger debt the one that will never claim me, or that no one will ever know about.” He was the “rock” that she could always hold on to.
The images of Elizabeth II at the duke’s farewell ceremonies showed the queen, first and foremost, not the life partner who had just lost ‘her other half’. Everyone could see her in blackwith the mask, and with the sobriety what was expected of her figure. The procession would go inside.
Did the queen suffer a downturn when she became a widow?
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Jorge Lareo is a psychologist specializing in grief at the Claritas Psychological Institute and explains that “the repercussion of the death of the other is brutal, and the emptiness is greater when there is no work or social life, for example, and absolutely everything is shared: from brushing your teeth to taking a walk.”
For this reason, Lareo insists that many people somatize sadness and that is when, in effect, they take a ‘come down’ from a physical point of view, which can lead them to die shortly after their partners do. “This happens because body and mind go much more hand in hand than we believe,” he says.
However, this does not appear to be the case for Queen Elizabeth II. That is the opinion of Ana Polo, what have you written The Queen. The incredible life of Elizabeth II (The Sphere), a book about the monarch that will be published on October 5. Polo quotes the queen’s personal assistant, Angela Kelly, who also wrote about Elizabeth II’s mourning, and recounts: “She had a very bad time and when she came back from the funeral, she went into her chambers, where she was supposed to cry, though no one knew.”
According to the author, the queen was very reserved with her feelings, a reality within the reach of public opinion, which rarely saw her moved, but which she had carried since she was little: “When she fell, she was very aware that she had to put up with the tears,” says Polo.
She was not, then, a woman in need of physical contact nor to externalize their feelings, which agrees with that image of sobriety and coldness to which we were accustomed. “But precisely because of that, surely she would suffer greatly from the death of her husband. It must not be forgotten that she was very much in love with him. They were also the perfect complement: she very shy and reserved and he full of energy. He would help her break the ice and she would calm him down.”
Shortly after Philip of Edinburgh died, Elizabeth II was locked up for a few days, but then “we saw how she started to come out and she was great.” “I don’t think I had any comedowns. That came later, after the covid, with her mobility problems, etc. “says the author.
It must not be forgotten, he continues, that the queen was a very practical person, with a millimeter life and very little given to nostalgia or melancholy. The psychologist Jorge Lareo explains that these personalities are typical of those who avoid contact with her emotions, more focused on ‘doing and acting’ than to express their feelings.
The duel after a lifetime together
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Experts agree that duels in such long-lived couples have special characteristics that differentiate them from the rest. Xavier Fàbregas, founder and medical director of the More Ferriol Centerexplains: “There are studies that show that there is a increase in deaths of people whose spouse has died a little earlier. It has been seen that immunity decreases in these situations and it is addressed as a difficulty of adaptation in the face of a death of cohabitants after being together all their lives.
The doctor adds that the one who survives can go through their grief better depending on the support network they have, whether they are children, grandchildren, activities, friends, etc.: “In Okinawa [Japón] the key to longevity and happiness lies precisely in the mutual support that, above all, is provided widows among themselves. In this way, the loss of the other and the emptiness it leaves is better accepted.
A decisive factor when facing the loss of a partner with whom you have shared your entire life is how the death was, if there has been suffering or if you lost faculties. In this case, Queen Elizabeth II would not have had that carelessness, as indicated in her official statement, alluding to the fact that died “in peace” at Windsor Castle.” It must not be forgotten that the duke was a few months away from turn 100 years old
“Surely the queen felt a great void when her husband disappeared, with whom she would talk about things that she could not share with anyone else,” adds Dr. Fàbregas. Nevertheless, he continues, all those rituals, although very formal and contentthey had to help her manage the farewell.
“Although his real goodbye was in private, the rites are necessary formal frameworks in mourning,” he declares, since they serve as a channel for sadness. “On the other hand, the management of the grief of Lady D.and they didn’t do it well, the reaction was very slow and then the acceleration came,” he concludes.