Losing a parent is the most shattering thing a child can experience
PRINCE HARRY has admitted he regrets not talking about the death of his mother until adulthood.
“For the first 28 years of my life I couldn’t do it,” he said while hosting a barbecue for the charity Heads Together, which aims to tackle the stigma around mental health.
The prince, 31, was emphasising the importance of people talking about their feelings, and his comments won praise from children’s charities.
He showed he is unafraid to speak out about difficult issues in a frank, honest way.
The death of a parent is the most shattering event a child can experience.
It crushes your safe and secure world.
No matter how carefully it is handled, the sense of confusion, grief, loss and bewilderment is overwhelming – and the effects can last a lifetime.
My dad died of a heart attack when I was five years old – and decades later the impact of losing him still hurts.
I had just started school and every evening when he came home from work I sat on his knee to tell him what I had learned that day.
We had our little routine – a walk to watch the steam trains chuntering along the line near our home. With my hand in his, I felt my world was complete.
Suddenly, one summer day he was gone.
Back then, children weren’t allowed into hospital so I didn’t see him again or go to the funeral.
Death is a hard concept for a child to grasp. I soon realised it wasn’t a good idea to talk about it to my mum as it made her cry.
Only years later did I understand how hard life became for her after his death and how much she tried to protect me from the emptiness and sadness in our home. So I understand how Harry, then 12, must have felt to lose the woman he adored, his mum Diana. Who can forget the image of Harry and his brother, William, walking behind her coffin at her funeral?
I was sitting in the Press Gallery at Westminster Abbey for The Sunday Post that day and I saw both princes staring into space, trying hard not to cry. Life goes on but you never forget what it felt like to know that the person who made your world complete was gone forever.