Finding Sarah

by Sarah Ferguson

  I was so broken that I took to my room, and felt sick. Sick to my roots. Was I such a dreadful, horrid person? I suppose I must be. Have I done so much damage to so many? Am I really this outrageous person?

  Anamika called me out of the blue, just at the right time, to remind me that I am not on my own. God is within me, and I was wallowing in self-hatred, thereby not letting God in. Anamika then said the best advice is to go down to dinner with Beatrice and Eugenie and feel their love.

  I did so, and immersed myself in their young friends and the goodness of great people. I spoke with one of their male friends, Jamie, for over an hour about God. He confided that he had never spoken so openly to anyone about how he felt about God. His reaction reassured me yet again of my own God within myself. Miracles do happen every day.

  Yet for four hours I struggled and fought and questioned and tormented myself. Then I stood up. I immersed myself in Mark Nepo’s book. His words told me to forgive my past madness and move forward, mini step by mini step. I realized that although we go through muddy waters, the sun will shine again on the stillness of clear, calm waters.

  August 20, 2010

  My heart has been touched so many times by so many today and in the last few days. I have been tearful many times, and I can only believe and pray that this is a good thing, as my heart cracks open, and for the first time I lower the shield and allow love and compassion in.

  I need to and must love myself. I have to be the mother to myself that I never had, and the mother I am to my own lovely daughters.

  It hurts daily to allow the heart to open again, but through the love of my children and the love of people, I am now beginning to see and feel. I just might get well.

  15 “I Am a Thousand Winds That Blow”

  Acknowledge the life around you, no matter how inconsequential, and mesh your tempo with the rhythms of nature.

  I REFLECTED ON Mark Nepo’s brush with death, and I thought about how, in the course of three years, our family endured three tragic deaths: Princess Diana; my beloved mother, Susan Barrantes (which I shared earlier); and Carolyn Cotterell, my best friend. Shortly thereafter my father was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer and for the next six years we shared in his valiant fight, hoping to beat it.

  Carolyn was only forty-three years old when she died, with three young children. She was my best friend, my guardian angel, among the greatest teachers in my life.

  We went back nearly twenty years when we were young and single and striving to make our way in London. Carolyn rented me a room in her apartment for fifty dollars a week. All I owned was a narrow bed and a set of drawers, but I also had Carolyn, the perfect roommate. She took me under her wing when I was a mess of insecurities. She listened patiently to my weight problems and makeup problems and boyfriend problems, and gave her gentle counsel when asked.

  Later on, after I’d worn out my welcome in Buckingham Palace, she would say to me, “Fergatross [her pet name for me], just remember this: You walked into the Royal Family in blue jeans, and you can walk out in blue jeans. You have yourself, and you don’t need anything more.”

  I had relied on Carolyn my whole life yet she never seemed to find me a burden. She gladly became godmother to Beatrice, and I became godmother to her daughter, Poppy.

  The end began with a freckle, a tiny mole on her foot. With violent speed, the mole became a melanoma running up her leg and beyond. There were crushing treatments and moments of hope, but the cancer would run its course.

  I last saw Carolyn at her friends’ home in Los Angeles between rounds of chemotherapy. I asked her how she was standing the pain. A strong and spiritual Catholic, Carolyn told me that when she lay awake at night, she would look at her little Blessed Lady, kept near her bed, “and it gives me the strength to know that I’m not on my own.”

  As I made to go, Carolyn said, “Please take my Blessed Lady with you.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said.

  And Carolyn, with typical foresight, said, “You will need it more than I will.”

  When she died, not long thereafter, I could not see how I could live without her. I felt numb, inconsolable. For weeks I walked through the motions of living, unsure of its point.

  One night, about to go to sleep, I glanced at the Blessed Lady, which I keep with me wherever I go. I felt suffused with a warm feeling of Carolyn, who gave to the end. She will live on inside me as long as I draw breath.

  Diana’s death left a God-size hole in my heart. I loved her so much. Diana was one of the quickest wits I knew; nobody made me laugh like she did. We were like siblings—actually, our mothers, who went to school together, were also best friends. We took vacations together with our children. I snapped the photo Diana once used for her Christmas card.

  It is true that our friendship was periodically strained. Sadly, at the end we hadn’t spoken for a year, though I never knew the reason, except that once Diana got something in her head, it stuck there for a while. I wrote letters, thinking whatever happened didn’t matter, let’s sort it out. And I knew she’d come back. In fact, the day before she died she rang a friend of mine and said, “Where’s that Red? I want to talk to her.”

  In any sibling relationship, there are ups and downs and peaks and troughs, but we were always steadfast in our friendship. We never let the sun go down on too many heated discussions. Our bond was never broken.

  The night of the tragic crash in Paris, I was in Italy. After I got the call that Dodi Fayed had been killed, I immediately dialed Diana’s mobile phone and left a final, haunting voice mail, saying, “Duch [the princess’s longtime nickname], I’m here. How can I get to you?” I then tried to hire a plane to take me to Paris to be with Diana, before learning it was too late.

  She was just thirty-six. It seemed impossible. How could something like this happen? Her sudden death, like my mother’s, just didn’t make any sense to me. Diana was not finished with her work here on earth.

  Her passing left me devastated, but it was no less terrible for Beatrice and Eugenie, who were just nine and seven years old when Diana died. I’d been raised in the ways of the British “stiff upper lip” that culturally compels us to hide our emotions and show reserve and strength in times of adversity. It never felt natural to me to stuff my feelings and it is something I’ve discouraged in my girls. In our family, any loss deep enough to grieve deserves our heartfelt emotions. With Diana’s death, my own emotions jumped between shock and inconsolable sorrow. Beatrice and Eugenie cried initially and then went silent. For them, Diana’s death was frightening because their cousins’ mother was dead, and it scared them that one day I, too, might not come home. They loved Auntie Duch.

  Diana’s tragic death fundamentally changed the British people, who were unaccustomed to seeing such a widespread show of raw, heartfelt emotion. There were no stiff upper lips as men, women, and children wept openly and added to astonishing mounds of bouquets and cards left in Diana’s honor. Everyone was moved by our prime minister’s tearful tribute to the Princess of Wales, to whom he referred as “the people’s princess.”

  Britons expect and appreciate the Royal Family’s show of strength during difficult times, but in the days following Diana’s death their normal stoicism was widely and, I think, unfairly criticized. Anticipating enormous crowds in London on the day of Diana’s funeral, Buckingham Palace doubled the cortege route between Kensington Palace and Westminster Abbey. Another hundred thousand descended on Hyde Park to view the funeral service on giant projection screens, and thousands more lined the seventy-seven-mile stretch of highway to see Diana’s hearse en route to her bucolic ancestral home, where she is buried.

  After Diana’s death, my challenge wasn’t how to fill the void, but how to live with it, how to make that space that hurts so much find its proper place in my life. I still say good night to Diana and Carolyn. I miss them every minute of every day. They were my sisters.

  My parents never spoke of death to my sister Jane and me, but you could still
tell when someone had died because of my mum and dad’s somber mood and hushed tone of voice. This made me think dying was unspeakably horrible, and it is little wonder that the sight of Mum and Dad in their black funeral clothes gave me nightmares.

  This is not to say that I think death should be made pretty or easy. In fact, I believe in facing death and loss with total honesty, because unless we experience its pain, we will have difficulty moving forward.

  Beatrice and Eugenie had experienced the sudden deaths of Diana and my mother, but it was my father’s cancer that made them witness the kind of gradual death that comes with terminal illness. Dad was a big, colorful grandfather to my girls, loved for his wicked wit and owl-like eyebrows. They would brush them with their Barbie toy hair brushes. He’d been the picture of health until 1996 when, out of the blue, he called us.

  “The doctor did some tests. I have cancer. Prostate cancer. But wait—I’m not finished yet. They caught it early enough. I’ll have some radiotherapy, and I’ll be just fine.”

  We were stunned. He’d had no symptoms at all.

  After the shock of the diagnosis, our family descended into an icy fog of fear. But not my father. He was determined not to be beaten by it and the thought of death never entered his mind. He wouldn’t let anything get him down.

  Statistically, the report meant this: My father’s rate of cure was optimistic. In any group of three patients, only one is likely to die from this type of cancer. My dad, typically, responded that he felt sorry for the unlucky bloke.

  For the next three months Dad had daily doses of radiotherapy and went into remission for several years. Then, in 2001, the cancer returned.

  Confused, maybe even panicked, we helped him focus on treatment decisions that would help try to save his life. He could not have radiotherapy twice, and he refused hormone treatment, which could cause impotence.

  Dad continued playing cricket and lived as normal a life as possible. He needed my stepmother in ways he’d never needed her before, and she was there for him, every step of the way, with patience, encouragement, and deep abiding love.

  It was, nonetheless, a stressful, trying time for everyone. I plastered a smile on my face and tried to maintain a positive outlook, but the fact is I was terrified. We all were.

  Along the way, I formed some very definite opinions I knew I would want to share. If your husband is facing prostate cancer, listen to the doctor but do your homework. Find a support group, and become a one-woman support group for your husband. This disease goes to the very heart of his manhood.

  In November 2003, Dad collapsed, having suffered a suspected heart attack, and was admitted to hospital. His last words to me were, “Well, you and your sister get your great legs from me, not your mother.” He then said, “Remember the show has to go on.”

  Dad rallied after suffering a second heart attack but, at the end of a long struggle, his condition deteriorated and he passed away. Beatrice was twelve and Eugenie almost eleven. Dad had been in and out of the hospital for years, so there was no denying that one day he’d be gone.

  When he died, I grieved, I cried. It seemed as though I’d be forever grieving. It was really tough. Emotions just went right through me. I kept going over it in my head and thinking of things I should have said. I tried to move on; that’s all I could do. Life got sadly different with Dad gone.

  Strangely the slow progression of his illness allowed my girls to experience the preciousness of life and the meaning of peace and dignity in death. You see, when Dad was diagnosed, he did something extraordinarily brave. He took to the public stage as an advocate for prostate cancer prevention. Between stretches of therapy, my father gave countless media interviews and speeches all over Britain to illuminate the health issue most men try their hardest to ignore.

  Offering words of hope to other cancer sufferers, he optimistically pronounced: “You can never get used to that word, cancer. Cancer is something that hits straightaway and because you hear about so many cases of people with cancer dying, immediately cancer is connected with death. But it doesn’t have to be, far from it in my case. It doesn’t have to be.”

  After Dad died, he was widely praised for his one-man campaign that surely saved many lives. For our family his legacy is one of courage, compassion, and selflessness.

  Death struck Beatrice and Eugenie hard when their close friend James, just twenty-one, without warning or apparent reason, shot himself to death. James was the son of one of my best childhood friends and for the girls he was like their big brother. Beatrice, Eugenie, and I were inconsolable at James’s funeral, heartbroken and mystified as to why someone so full of life and love decided to just end it all. We are determined to help Clare, James’s mother, with the James Wentworth-Stanley Memorial Fund, which does research on teenage suicides, now the second-largest cause of death among young men age fifteen to forty-four in the UK. In 2006, there were 5,554 deaths, which amounts to about fifteen suicides a day, considerably more than traffic accidents.

  When someone close dies everyone’s world turns upside down. There is the initial shock followed by the whirlwind of contacting family and friends and preparing for the funeral. Then suddenly life is meant to get back to normal—as it should and must. Indeed, the healthiest thing a family can do is to pull together and share the stages of grief, coping, and healing.

  When my friends and family must mourn the loss of a loved one, I send them this poem on grieving. It has helped me when those dear to my heart have moved on.

  Do not stand at my grave and weep;

  I am not there. I do not sleep.

  I am a thousand winds that blow.

  I am the diamond glints on snow.

  I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

  I am the gentle autumn rain.

  When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

  I am the swift uplifting rush

  Of quiet birds in circle flight.

  I am the soft stars that shine at night.

  Do not stand at my grave and cry;

  I am not there. I did not die.

  When I am at Royal Lodge, I rise early in the morning to walk through the woods. One day on my walk, my mind swirling with such anxiety, I stepped into a clearing, and a flock of birds clattered up from the trees. I gazed across the woodland, with its bluebells and wildflowers under the opening sky. It came to me that I want much more of this before I die. The irony followed: I often missed out on this blessing before because my mind would be troubled with something else. Now my walks are both a joy and a spiritual discipline. My task is simple, but difficult: Pay attention. See all of nature stirring before my every step. Hear the wind rustling through the tender leaves. Recognize how the world grows more and more beautiful every single day.

  NUGGETS:

  • Grief is a personal journey, and the time line of when you’ll start to feel better is different for everyone. Know that you won’t be in a place of grief forever, and as time passes, you’ll hurt less often. If you look at your watch, it never stops for no man—it keeps on going and so will you.

  • Be open to the lessons that can be learned from your painful experiences. If we are open to them, all the events in our lives—even painful ones—have the seed of something new and good. Advice is great but even with these nuggets do not rely on them—rely on yourself. Listen to everyone’s advice, but make up your own mind.

  • Do not hide, shirk, or flee from the pain. Allow yourself to experience it, but practice the virtue of endurance. Endure what cannot be changed. Live by the reality that you will grow stronger because of the experience.

  • Let loved ones in. Allowing others to help you—whether by making phone calls or doing your grocery shopping—benefits you both: You’ll have company in some of your burdens, and they’ll feel good about lightening your load.

  DIARY ENTRY

  September 1, 2010

  I spent time in New York City with Poppy, the daughter of my angelic friend Carolyn. Poppy is the photocopy of her mother
. She is interning at the Gagosian Gallery, and shining tall and beautiful. One Thursday night, I invited Poppy over for a sleepover in my hotel room and gave her a pair of pajamas. When I shared a flat with her mother so many years ago, we gave each other rose-colored pajamas. I shared this story with Poppy as I handed the pajamas to her. It was a special moment between us. I hope she always feels my love, support, and comfort when she wears her rose pajamas. I offered Poppy a caveat though: Don’t wear them when a good-looking boy is around!

  16 No-Man’s-Land

  Recognition, appreciation, and gratitude all grow in the heart when we have love, silence, compassion, and gentleness.

  A FEW YEARS AGO, I woke up to an amusing headline (at least it wasn’t destructive or libelous!). The British tabloids were reporting that I was about to become a Buddhist—simply because I met with the Dalai Lama on a recent visit to India.

  Certainly, I am inclined toward spirituality. For me, faith and spirituality mean peace. At every stage of life, whether in hardship, loneliness, or bitterness, you feel peaceful inside, because you know that God is walking next to you, unseen, unheard but looking after you so that you will not fall down.

  Becoming a mother has been a spiritually life-changing experience for me. It has made me grateful for being blessed with two gorgeous lives. Every time I see Beatrice and Eugenie I know without a doubt that there is a God. And that He resides in their sparkly lives. My girls are the best ambassadors of who I am. They’re the one really good thing that I’ve done in my life and that can’t be taken away from me. Eugenie has a fantastic creative flair. Beatrice is responsible and definitely born to be a princess. Both are respectful of life.

  I know God must love me for giving me a considerate and compassionate man like Andrew and supportive and encouraging friends. I see God in everyone around me, and my idea of worship is to be loving and respectful for all that I come in contact with.