September 8, 2022.
That date is now carved into the history books. It was the last day of the second Elizabethan era.
Queen Elizabeth II died as she had lived — quietly and with dignity.
After 70 years of steadfast loyalty to her country and the Commonwealth, the Queen, 96, died at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands, her coffin carried to the hearse by gamekeepers from the estate.
While her death was hardly a surprise, it was still shocking to the world.
Earlier in the year, the U.K. had exuberantly celebrated her Platinum Jubilee with concerts, street parties, endless parades and festivities. There was even a visit with Paddington Bear, when the Queen finally revealed what she kept in her handbag. It turns out it was Paddington’s favourite food — a marmalade sandwich.
The grand celebration culminated in a giant love-in for the late Queen outside Buckingham Palace. It was telling that the Queen skipped a couple of important events and her absence did not go unnoticed. You sense her loyal subjects realized her life was coming to an end and they were sending her a farewell message of love and appreciation.
There will never be another jubilee celebration quite like it.
As the RAF thundered overhead with a flypast in a “70” formation tribute, members of the Royal Family gathered on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in what would turn out to be her last hurrah to Londoners.
Her death just a few weeks later seemed to catch everyone off guard.
In his biography of the Queen released after her death, author Gyles Brandreth revealed the Queen was suffering from myeloma, a blood cancer, although the cause of death recorded on her death certificate was “old age.”
Her last act before she died was not, as some believe, asking Liz Truss to become U.K. Prime Minister. The last official communication she signed the day before she died was a message of condolence to the people of Canada after the tragic mass stabbings in James Smith Cree Nation in Weldon, Saskatchewan.
The Queen loved Canada. She’d visited this country 22 times — more than any other country in the world. Her first visit was in 1951, shortly before the death of her father, George VI.
Her last trip to Canada was in 2010, when she went to a film studio in Toronto and visited BlackBerry maker Research in Motion in Waterloo.
Then there were rainbows. Shortly after she died, photographs appeared on social media of rainbows blossoming over her favourite homes at Balmoral, Windsor and Buckingham Palace.
It seemed as if the world came to a standstill for her funeral. The images are seared in our memories.
For Canadians, it was the four Mounties leading the solemn procession.
The stoic faces of the pallbearers as they carried her coffin into St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle said it all. And who could forget the grace with which 142 naval ratings pulling the coffin up The Mall towards Buckingham Palace?
Hundreds of thousands of silent mourners gathered to watch the Queen take her final journey and throughout it all, there was the hypnotic rhythm of the funeral march. In a final act signifying the death of the monarch, the Lord Chamberlain broke his wand of office on the coffin to signify the end of her reign.
Queen Elizabeth II is dead. Long live King Charles III.
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