How Can Diana Die? | Molara Wood Tweets About Princess Diana’s Death

On August 31, 1997 Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris. Her life, as much as her death, was a global phenomenon.

The ten-year anniversary of her death took place a few days ago. Social media was flooded with goodwill messages. People recalled where they were when they first heard the news of her death.

The African literary side of social media did not disappoint. Princess Diana received her fair share of commemorative posts.

Nigerian writer Molara Wood, who is, by the way, a staunch dianophile, shared a series of tweets in which she recalled the collective experience of loss and morning that followed Princess Diana’s death.

Wood tells this funny story about hearing the news of Diana’s death and falling down the stairs while heavily pregnant. Thankfully, the story has a happy ending. The child is now 19 years old and well.

We love Wood’s personal take on an occurrence as public and distant as the death of an iconic figure of British royalty.

[Go HERE to read Wood’s beautiful essay on Diana’s passing published on the Sunday edition of Guardian Nigeria.]

Enjoy!

I was in Newport/Wales when I got the call that Diana died. I was in the first trimester, at the top of a staircase. I fell down the stairs

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

The baby is now 19-years-old, born into a post-Diana world. “Ah, Diana ti ku” – my friend’s urgent voice on the phone, the saddest words…

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

When I recovered from my fall, there was shock, utter disbelief. “How can Diana die?” I kept asking. The most wrenching death in public life

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

I cut short my Welsh holiday and went back to London. I wanted to be comforted in the unifying atmosphere of unprecedented public grieving.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

The feeling in London in the days leading up to Diana’s funeral, indescribable. Strangers greeted one another in the street, in consolation.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

After that phone phone call, switched on the TV. One of them, maybe CNN, had the banner, ‘Death of Diana’. Dan Rather broke down on the news

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

I still can’t explain it, the sense that people had, still have, like they knew Diana personally. It was a terrible feeling of personal loss

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

There’s never been anything like it before or since, and set the tone for British life going forward, and how the monarchy ought to be.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

Diana’s death taught me something of the finality of death, because if love could bring a person back from the dead, Diana would have woken.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

The pall of mourning all over the land, the lake of flowers outside Buckingham Palace. I was part of that shared, all unifying experience.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

Her brother Earl Spencer’s speech at Westminster Abbey would later be included among a book of the Greatest Speeches, and deservedly so.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

Passionate speech, so untypical of the aristocracy, evoked “the most hunted person of the modern age” – named for the Goddess of the hunt.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

The speech spoke to the feeling of millions, and got spontaneous applause. A tradition was born: the British started clapping at funerals.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

Before WMDs and sexed-up dossiers, Diana’s death made and unmade Tony Blair in my eyes. His response at news of her death was in the moment.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

Blair’s seemingly heartfelt response put Tory William Hague’s to shame. Someone said Hague sounded like he was mourning his “prized pig”.

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

But in his reading of I Corinthians 13 at Diana’s funeral, with his over-dramatised pauses, I saw the first sign of Tony Blair’s insincerity

— Molara Wood (@molarawood) August 31, 2017

 

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Image by Milton Johanides via Flickr.