September 8, 2022

There was a photo of Queen Elizabeth on the auditorium gymnasium wall in my elementary school in Calgary, a normal thing in my commonwealth-country home of my childhood. We had to sing God Save the Queen and the Canadian national anthem at our assemblies. I can no longer remember which one came first. At first I wouldn’t sing either because the weren’t my country’s songs, but then, by my last year as an American ex-pat child, I started to sing this song. Later I would even sing the Canadian national anthem. Honestly, I really never learned the entirety of my own national anthem, which tells you something.

When we sang God Save the Queen we children were to turn and face the photo of the Queen. I thought she looked old, even though in the photo her hair was still brown. I never gave a real thought, then, about whether she was pretty. Her style was so decidedly not 1970s, so of course not. But she most certainly was pretty, inside and out.

Rest in peace Queenie, and I know I’m not supposed to refer to her as “Queenie”, but she was a real force and I have very great admiration and love for her, so for me, she has a nickname.

God Save the Queen. Or make that: God, welcome Queenie.

(Images not my own; please see credits.)