P.why did Queen Elizabeth love animals so deeply? She, educated by everyone to control since she was a young girl and then re-educated herself to an even tighter discipline, she became soft, indulgent, expansive with her dogs and horses.
For the three favorites, a role has been carved out in the script of the funeral.
The black pony, Emma15, appeared to the side of the procession as she entered beyond the gates of the Windsor estate, still and tame as she had been with her mistress and breeder, capable of riding her up to the age of 93.
Muick and Sandy, the two Corgi, instead they waited for the coffin covered with flowers and jewels in front of the family chapel.
Screenwriter of her own funeral as per royal tradition, Queen Elizabeth also wanted to trace the path of her own heritage here, lining up human and non-human people behind her.
How to exclude from the farewell ceremony Emma, Muick and Sandy, representing hundreds of other life companions crouched in two centuries? Who – if not the army of her animals – had been able to love her (or not love her) without looking at the scepter or the ranks on the uniform? Not caring about the color of his blood and rubies, perhaps hating that strange spotted fur that exotic bordered the velvet of the cloaks?
Whether she is the last ruler of an empire where the sun never set or the homeless lord of a sidewalk at night, the gift of animal love is this poignant gratuitousness that hits the mark like an arrow, passing through a look that does not blink and does not know the shadows of irony. And he does not accept detachment, he cannot understand abandonment.
Dying – writes Wislawa Szymborska – this is not done to a cat. “Something doesn’t happen here / as it should. / Someone was here, there was / then suddenly he disappeared / and he insists on not being there.” It is the feline that waits in an empty apartment, after rummaging in the closets and under the carpet, pondering a little revenge when finally “he” will return to fill the rooms as always: “Then he will learn / that you can’t do this with a cat. offense./And at the beginning no jumps or squeaks ».
Greeted by billions of viewers on live TV, accompanied by subjects in line, honored by the bow of crowned heads and democratic heads of state, Elisabetta will have smiled at the thought of those three disoriented guests, perhaps impatient, who were only looking for the timbre of her voice, the precise sound of the steps on the stairs.that shape that in recent times has been curving gently.
Have you experienced first hand the fidelity and affection of one of your animals? S.criveteci a [email protected]
All articles by Barbara Stefanelli
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