Like him or loathe him, Prince Harry’s grief after losing his mum Princess Diana is something, sadly, many can relate to.
In a candid conversation at a charity outreach event, Harry opened up about the familiar emotions and thoughts that come with such a tremendous loss.
“You convince yourself that the person that you’ve lost wants you or needs you to be sad for as long as possible to prove to them that they’re missed,” he said.
“But then there’s this realisation of, no, they must want me to be happy.”
A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
The Duke of Sussex, who will be honoured at the 2024 ESPY Awards for his work as the founder of the Invictus Games, went on to share that processing grief as a child is hard.
They don’t see that talking about the loss of their parent is a celebration of their life. Instead, it’s “I don’t want to talk about. It’s going to make me sad,” Harry explains.
“But once realising that if I do talk about it, I’m celebrating their life. Then actually things become easier. As opposed to this, ‘No, I’m just not going to talk about it’ and that’s the best form of coping, when in fact it’s not,” he said.
“It can be for a period of time. [But] if you suppress this for too long… you can’t suppress it forever. It’s not sustainable. And it will eat away at you inside.
“Equally, nobody wants to be in a position where they’re forced to talk about the very thing they don’t want to talk about, especially when every defense mechanism in your mind, your nervous system and everything else is saying do not go there.”
HARRY SPEAKS FROM EXPERIENCE
The 39-year-old prince speaks from experience. Harry previously admitted to spending nearly two decades “not thinking” about his mum’s passing. He was only 12 years old when she died.
Suppressing his emotions, he says, led to his “complete breakdown” and feelings of “total chaos” in his 20s.
Fortunately, however, it paved the way for him to finally process his grief. But as many know, it’s on ongoing journey.
Grief comes in waves. Sometimes it’s gentle. And other times, you feel as though you’re drowning.
SCOTTY’S LITTLE SOLDIERS AMBASSADOR
Harry is the global ambassador for Scotty’s Little Soldiers, a British charity supporting children whose parents have died while serving in the armed forces. On Thursday, the charity posted a video titled “From Grief to Growth” on its YouTube channel.
Filmed in May, the video shows Harry’s conversation with the charity’s founder Nikki Scott. This chat came after Harry spent the day playing games with the 50 children involved in the charity.
Prince Harry first got involved with Scotty’s Little Soldiers in 2017. He and wife Meghan Markle donated money raised in association with their wedding to support its ongoing operations.
