London Bridge is down

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was to check my phone for the news I was expecting to see. I’ll have more to say later, but I’m personally saddened by the death of Queen Elizabeth, even though I’m a firm republican (lower case “r”). She devoted her life to public service, and I admire her for that: I absolutely couldn’t have done it.

For most of us, she is, at the very least, a link to a constancy within our own lives: She was always there. Presidents and prime ministers come and go, but the Queen was constant. As we get older, we all lose the links, the anchor points, that have kept us, for lack of a better word, moored in our own lives. But everything and everyone ends, and so, too, do those moorings. We adapt.

For me, it’s going to be weird to be in a world without Queen Elizabeth in it, and to talk of “the King”. Next year, TV ads will bring more weirdness as retailers promote their “King’s Birthday Sales”, and it’ll be a reminder again that we have all dealt with repeated and absolutely massive upheavals and changes over the past several years—and that reality’s clearly not changing for the foreseeable future.

I wish good luck for the new King of New Zealand, King Charles III—he’s definitely going to need some. And while I may not be a fan of monarchies, I can nevertheless admire the Queen for a job well done. London Bridge is down. Farewell.

This post was originally published on my personal Facebook Page. The title and phrase “London Bridge is down” is the code phrase for the UK Government’s ”Operation London Bridge”, the advance planning for what would happen following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The portrait above of the Queen is being used for official mourning.