Sure, for some, it’s the loss of a hero.
But primarily, I believe, the loss is related to our own sense of mortality and our feelings about the state of the world.Presidents, prime ministers, religious figures — they’ve come and gone by the droves, but the Queen began her long reign in 1952.Given the past few years of constant world upheaval, the loss of that one constant is, in itself, an emotional trigger.For one particular generation — my mother’s — the Queen was of their time.
So when I contemplate a world without the Queen — which is now the stark reality — it reminds me of the loss of all those Nichols siblings, and the fact that great generation is slipping away from us all, whether it be your parents, grandparents or great-grandparents, perhaps even great-great-grandparents to some young folk.
The passing of singers like Prince and David Bowie no doubt connected people to a time of their youth in the 1980s and reminded us all of the inevitable. Same thing for Elvis to the screaming teens of the 1950s.