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My Reaction to the Death of Queen Elizabeth II Has Truly Surprised Me
Though maybe it shouldn’t have
Let’s get something obvious out of the way at the start: I am not British. I do have English/Scottish ancestry, but my relationship with it has been complicated. My grandfather told me as a young child that our family settled the Georgia colony with Oglethorpe in 1733; I learned later that those first settlers were from debtors prisons, which took the shine off the accomplishment (historians now say that this was a myth, but when even the myths say your ancestors were destitute it’s hard to get too excited about those ancestors). Almost out of self-defense, I have always emphasized the Italian heritage inherited from my first-generation, non-incarcerated grandmother.
I give you that bit of family history simply to say that I have no national or ethnic bond that would cause any significant reaction to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II other than the sadness everyone everywhere felt when they heard the news. On top of that, grief in general is something we don’t do in my family, at least not the wailing, sobbing sort of grief you see in the movies.
No, my family is a stoic bunch and when someone dies we say goodbye, get drunk until the funeral sharing happy memories of the deceased, make sure a family member throws the first…
