The Crown Reminded Us That Princess Diana Died At The Worst Time For A Mom

The sixth season of The Crown got to me, in a way that I’m not sure Princess Diana’s actual death got to me. I remember it, of course I do. It was one of those moments in the ‘90s where everyone remembered where they were when they found out. I was in a diner on a back road, eating eggs and bacon and toast, and I saw it on the cover of some farmer’s newspaper. It was August, it was hot. It was sad because she was beautiful and because she was a mom and because there was always something just a little bit sad about her. I couldn’t put my finger on it then. But I think I can now that I watched her final days dramatized in The Crown. She died at the worst time for a mom. When her love for her sons was, as happens to us all, starting to feel unrequited.

I think maybe her life was all about unrequited love, if The Crown is to be believed. Her own father, always just slightly out of reach. Her husband Prince Charles, desperately pushing her away to be with the woman he really loved. Even her adoring public. Who were, and I remember this so clearly now, not so adoring in those final days. Yes, she was still relentlessly stalked by paparazzi. Yes, she was almost always on the cover of at least one newspaper. But I remember the mood shifting about her back then. Were people tired of her? The drama of her very public divorce had cooled and no one seemed to know quite where to put her. Was she the injured party? Was she the problem? Was she someone people needed to worry about anymore? She didn’t have royal subjects anymore, she was our subject instead. A subject people didn’t seem sure they wanted to study.

She didn’t get to ride the wave of the sullen, silent teen years only to come back to something special and deeper and grown-up later.

It was hard to watch Princess Diana (played by Elizabeth Debicki) in her final days in The Crown. Because we all knew what was coming for her, obviously, but also because we saw where she might have been at that age. Still wanting to wake her boys up in their beds, take them on holidays, hang out with them. Do everything with them and then sort of wait around in suspended animation when they are with their father. This is probably an oversimplification. This is probably another mom projecting onto Princess Diana and remembering what it was like to hit those years with her kids. Prince William and Prince Harry, 15 and 12 years old, respectively. Stretching up tall all of a sudden. Pulling, pulling, pulling away all the time. Especially Prince William because 15 is a singular age. When a person doesn’t want to be best pals with their mother anymore. When they might want to take the main stage and have their mother watch their lives from somewhere up in the nosebleeds. Just for a little while, just until intermission.

And then she died. All of a sudden. In a rotten car crash in a tunnel in Paris beside a man who was not her person. Because I think probably her boys were her people. And she died at a time when they didn’t necessarily want to be her people all the time. When they wanted to hang out at Balmoral Castle in Scotland with the rest of the royal family and go hunting and be all manly. When a phone call with their mother was rushed and a bit annoyed. When she was starting to get that first taste of the falling away our kids all do.

This is the enduring heartbreak of her loss, to me. That Princess Diana died before she got to see her love come back. From millions of people around the world who suddenly, magically forgot they had decided not to bother with her anymore and instead turned her into the People’s Princess. From her friends, from her family, even a little bit from her ex-husband Prince Charles, who was so openly distraught in the wake of her death.

But mostly, she never got the chance to close that circle with her sons. She didn’t get to ride the wave of the sullen, silent teen years only to come back to something special and deeper and grown-up later. To sit across the table from her grown sons over a cocktail or nachos or a game of cards and not just love each other because it is in their DNA but also choose to love each other. She didn’t get the chance to become the keeper of their memories, to be there when they needed to be reminded that they were good or strong or silly or fun. To tease them, as she so famously loved to do.

She died on an inhale as a mom. This was the kicker of it, what made it so painful to watch: After all of those tense years in her marriage, she was just starting to take that big inhale. To take a few steps on her own while she waited for her boys to return to her. While she figured out how to be a full grown-up without them, for the first time ever.

And she just never got to exhale.