WiNK

Traveling to England for the Queen

by: Cece Purkiss

On Monday, September 19th, Queen Elizabeth's funeral was held at Westminster Abbey. Over 250,000 people were in the queue to see the Queen's coffin, which lay there for four days The streets were flooded with mourning citizens waiting to pay their respects. Among these citizens waiting in line were celebrities, such as David Beckham, who stood in line for 13 hours.

Annie De Rosaire, '23, flew to England with her parents to fulfill her dad's wishes of being home when the Queen passed away. Her dad grew up just outside London and since living in America, always promised himself that he would fly home to be with his family during the mourning period. When I asked Annie about how different it felt to be in London she said, "Well to start, the plane was completely full, it seemed everyone on the plane was coming back for the funeral. It was quieter compared to how it usually was, it had a solemn and sad feel. When we landed at the airport, all of the screens had pictures of her, from her whole life. In central London, every surface and screen or shop window had a picture of her. Everything on the day of the funeral was closed, including supermarkets. It was jarring and when we were leaving the airport, we saw people crying, who had come home for the funeral." Next, I asked Annie about how her family felt about the loss of the Queen. She said, "Anyone we talked to, it was the first thing we talked about. My family wasn't mourning her because we knew her personally, we were mourning her because it was the end of an era. It was the only queen my family had ever known. We talked about how we think King Charles will do. We spoke to my family friend Andrew, whose nephew was in the navy, so he was in the procession. He went on this whole trip by himself, as an ode to the queen. He started in Paddington Station, then he took the Elizabeth line and went to Windsor and woke up really early, so he could make sure he got a good spot to see the queen go by and pay his respects. It was interesting to see the different lengths people went to say goodbye."

Although Annie and her family didn't watch the whole thing, from what they saw it was a beautiful ceremony that honored the queen in the right way. Queen Elizabeth's horse, Emma, and her corgis were all at Westminster Abbey, and all got a special chance to say goodbye. The country's strong sense of community has never been more apparent, as a monarchist country there was no one more important than Queen Elizabeth. It will be a big change for the whole world, but the ceremony was a special way to honor and say goodbye to a large part of history.