PRINCESS DIANA

1961-1997

She was unloved by her husband, disliked by his family, and adored by most of the world. My single meeting with her, two years before her death, I recorded in my journal as "awesome." We watched her get knocked down over and over— humiliated, hurt, betrayed and we watched her get up again. And persevere. It's because she was so imperfect that we loved her so. There is little question that Dodi Fayed, whom I knew, was wrong for her, but she had become much, much too famous to attract the sort of man who might have proved to be a suitable consort for the mother of the future King of England. Perhaps, in the overall scheme, what happened was destined to happen. Now we have her beauty and her goodness in perpetuity. Beware, the spoilers are coming, hell-bent on her besmirchment. That her brother, Earl Spencer, has already been categorized by some as a self-serving lout cannot diminish the power and pertinence of his eulogy, which will be quoted forever as part of the history of Diana, Princess of Wales.