The Princess and the Dreamer

Mama thought I was crazy. It was not the first time. Nor would it be the last. But it was certainly the most memorable.

No one in my family will ever forget it.

The tragic news had filtered across the pond from London that Princess Diana had been killed in a Paris car accident. Since typical Southern women are captivated by fashion and panache, we had all been enthralled by Diana’s stylish essence. As a teenager, I climbed out of bed at 4:30 a.m. to watch her wedding. Mama and I sat in the dark, with only the flickering light of the television, sipped coffee and exchanged remarks on the event.

So, you would have thought that she, of all people, would understand. You would have thought she could see the reason in me flying to London for Diana’s funeral, if only to stand among the throng of grieving Brits.

Oh, but she didn’t. And it turned into the monumental disagreement of our lives. For two days, we battled. “You’re not going!” she stormed. “I won’t have everyone knowing what a crazy child I have. I have never heard of anything so ridiculous. We’ll be the laughing stock of the country.”

“Mama, I’m going,” I said firmly but it was not easy for I had never opposed Mama in anything she was adamantly against.

“Go,” Daddy said and so I went. It would become the most defining moment of my adult life which is saying a lot because there have been many moments of crystallization that led me to who I am today.

The day I boarded that plane for London, I symbolically drew a line in the sand and proclaimed my independence by taking complete, confident possession of my future choices. From that moment forth, I would call my own shots, some so bold that they surprise even me.

And my family, especially Mama, would never flicker an eyelash at any other fanciful venture of mine. Funny what a commoner can learn from the death of a princess.

ABC News found me in London and interviewed the American who had traveled alone to attend the Princess’s funeral. Back home, Mama would watch the interview – caught by chance – from the sofa in her living room. She smiled.

In London, I made a new friend. Barker Keith was a young, handsome New York attorney who happened to be on a solitary holiday so we paired up and toured the town together. Following her funeral, we wandered around Kensington Palace and viewed the acres of floral tributes and notes. Afterwards, we sat in the park under a magnificently ancient oak tree and talked of our dreams. Two strangers we were, sharing our souls.

“I want to write a book and be published,” the newly emboldened me breathlessly declared. It was the loftiest thing I could imagine, a dream I had harbored since I was 6.

Barker didn’t flinch. As the late afternoon sun streamed across his blonde head, he nodded. “Wonderful,” he replied as though it was completely ordinary and quite possible. “What will you write about?”

Another defining moment. For right then and there, I knew it was possible. So, it was quite befitting that exactly a year later when the New York publishing world launched a four-day bidding war for the rights to my first book – at that point, it was only an outline – that Barker Keith and I dined together in the city’s theater district. Excitedly, I gushed and told him all the news of my meetings with publishers like Penguin-Putnam and Random House. I couldn’t eat for talking and, pleased, he listened patiently.

“I shall never forget,” I told him. “That afternoon in Kensington Park when you made me believe this was all possible.”

Perhaps Princess Diana’s death did not change the whole world. But it certainly changed mine.