I didn’t have an imaginary friend like most kids. I had an imaginary mother. Out of all the women in the world I created the one that I had the smallest chance of ever meeting to be my mother. I was a very small child when my real mother mentally abandoned me. Not much older when she physically abandoned me. I’m not sure at which point I created a new mom. But I don’t have a memory when I didn’t consider Princess Diana my mother.
She was the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen. She had that accent. The kindest eyes. The most giving heart. And to top it off she was a Princess! Why couldn’t she be my mother? I mean, just because I was an American child living in Colorado with my father. I didn’t need to go to England or actually meet her. She was comfort to me. I named my favorite doll after her. I would imagine life at Buckingham Palace as I’d fall asleep. A funny little secret is that I’m 33 years old and she has been dead for over a decade and I still have those thoughts at night. I remember the night that she died. I was living in Hawaii trying to get to know my mom. She had let me take her car while she was at work and I was in the parking lot waiting to pick her up. The car was yellow. The air was salty. Tradewinds cooling down the island. I had the radio on. I have never known loss like I felt that night. My mom came out to the car and asked what was wrong. I told her my mother had died. I don’t remember much else of that night. I couldn’t watch her funeral. I tried to stay up. It was live during the middle of the night for us in Hawaii. I had cried myself to exhaustion and only saw bits and pieces of it.