Why Meghan’s mother is the perfect person to stand by her side as she steps into her new life
DORIA RAGLAND raised her only daughter to have a broad world view. As a child, Rachel Meghan Markle, as she was then called, visited disadvantaged children in Rwanda, the slums of Jamaica and experienced poverty in Mexico when she was just 10 years old.
But driving through the gates of Windsor Castle yesterday, where she was to take tea with the Queen, it must have struck Doria that this was not the life she had imagined for her girl, or for herself. The Queen is understood to have welcomed Ms Ragland – who has also met the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall – to Windsor yesterday. Today, as Meghan arrives at St George’s Chapel to marry in front of a congregation of 600, a 100,000-strong crowd will watch on big screens outside Windsor Castle, an estimated 27 million people will be glued to televisions across the country, and millions more around the world, Doria will be by her side, there to steady her nerves and remind her of home. It comes after a week which saw Meghan’s father Thomas Markle – who had been due to accompany her through the chapel – pull out at the last minute, saying doctors had advised him to stay away, prompting the Prince of Wales to step in to walk Meghan up the aisle. Thomas Markle Jr and Samantha Grant, Meghan’s half-brother and sister, have both made waves in the past few days giving countless interviews to gossip websites and tabloids – the bitterness they seemed to feel towards their younger, famous sister, turning to an outpouring of sentimentality, and last-ditch pleas to be invited. “It’s not too late to send me an invite, along with your entire family,” Thomas Markle Jr wrote.
It leaves Meghan with just one family member set to attend – her mother.
She has talked often of her deep love and admiration for the woman who raised her. Indeed, she has always spoken graciously about both parents, who separated in 1987 after a 10-year relationship. But while she wished Mr Markle well, saying: “I have always cared for my father”, it is clear that her bond with him cannot come close to that with her “amazing” mother.
“We can just have so much fun together, and yet, I’ll still find so much solace in her support,” she has said of her mother, a “free-spirited clinical therapist”, who teaches yoga and lives in Los Angeles. “That duality coexists the same way it would in a best friend.”
Who better to have at her side as she crosses the threshold at St George’s Chapel, than the woman who raised her, who brings her so much joy, who will help her to take it all in her stride.