where were you…

Posted on June 29, 2011 by hugmamma

…when Diana, the Princess of Wales died? I can only think of one other person for whom that question has been asked…John F. Kennedy, our President. I know I was in school when he died, because classes were suspended. Instead we all walked to church to pray for him. In Diana’s case I think I was asleep, and learned with disbelief, about her death early the next morning.

Unlike President Kennedy‘s death of which so much has been written, documented, and analyzed in books and on TV shows, Diana’s death has been treated more gingerly it seems, at least here in the U.S. Either that, or I didn’t bother to read about it in the tabloid magazines because of their tendency to sensationalize the facts to make a profit. I didn’t set out to learn about them even now, they just fell into my lap, by way of Sarah Bradford’s Diana – Finally, The Complete Story.

I chose to share this with you because as in life, in death Diana’s beauty remained intact. Her serene appearance belied the inner damage that resulted from the horrific car accident.

It took almost an hour to free Diana from the wrecked car. She appeared to her rescuers to be the least injured of the four: only a slight trickle of blood from mouth and nose indicated that anything was wrong. Yet her internal injuries were life- threatening. After the initial impact the Mercedes had spun away, rotating at high speed before crashing into the tunnel wall on the right. At the first impact Dodi and Diana had been thrown violently forward against the backs of the front seats (not having worn their seat belts), then the rotation of the car had flung them around against the interior. When the Mercedes finally stopped, pointing back towards the mouth of the tunnel, Diana was slumped on the floor, against the back of Rees-Jones‘s seat, facing down the tunnel. Her legs were twisted, one under her, the other on the seat. With her eyes closed and her face undamaged apart from a cut on her forehead, she looked beautiful and as if she were asleep. But the shock of the impact and deceleration on her body had displaced her heart from the left to the right side, severing the pulmonary vein and rupturing the pericardium (the protective sac round the heart), flooding her chest cavity with blood. …

Image via Wikipedia

Yet to the first doctor on the scene, Frederic Mailliez, who had been driving through the tunnel in the opposite direction, she ‘looked pretty fine…I thought this woman had a chance.’ He put an oxygen mask over her face while attempting to clear her air passages. When the ambulance arrived, Dr. Jan-Marc Martino, a surgical anesthetist and resuscitation specialist, worked on Diana. Before they could transfer her to the ambulance, she suffered a heart attack. She was given cardiac massage and a respiratory tube was inserted into her mouth. Then she was lifted on to a stretcher and placed in the ambulance which crawled its way with a police escort to La Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, stopping once on the way as Diana’s blood pressure dropped to a dangerous level. She was put on a ventilator. ‘She was unconscious and under artificial respiration. Her arterial blood pressure was very low but her heart was still beating. X-rays revealed the horrific state of her internal injuries and afterwards she suffered a second heart attack. An incision in her chest revealed that bleeding was coming through a hole in the membrane round her heart and later that her superior left pulmonary vein was torn. Adrenalin was administered and cardiac massage kept her heart going but only just; there was no independent rhythm. Diana was to all intents and purposes already beyond help. Electric-shock therapy was administered, to no effect. At 4 a.m. (3 a.m. British time) on the morning of 31 August, she was pronounced dead.

Charles, Prince of Wales outside the White Hou...

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And while it was rumored at the time that Diana allegedly spoke a few words to Prince Charles, that was obviously not the case. “When Prince Charles and Diana’s sisters arrived in Paris, they found Diana looking serene and composed in death, wearing Lady Jay’s black cocktail dress and shoes, her hair freshly blow-dried, the rosary which Mother Teresa had given her in her hand. After Charles and her sisters had spent time alone with her, she was placed in a coffin for the return journey.”

According to those who accompanied the hearse through the streets of Paris, there was an outpouring of support for the People’s Princess.

‘They do it differently in Paris–they applaud. With the coffin, Prince Charles, the President, millions of police by now,…and the vicar (the Rev. Martin Draper), the whole of Paris was applauding…

Sadly Diana’s body was not received with the same honor bestowed upon it by the Parisians and the British masses, when it came to rest in the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace. Good friend, and the woman thought to have been most like a mother to the princess, Lucia Flecha de Lima flew from the U.S., where she lived, to London, upon learning of Diana’s death. To her amazement the coffin lay “…in lonely state, without flowers.”

Image by Maxwell Hamilton via Flickr

‘The first day when I arrived at the chapel there was not one single flower on her coffin. Then I said to the chaplain that if he didn’t allow flowers in, I would throw open the doors of the chapel so everyone could see her there without a single flower and all the flowers outside that people had brought. I said, “Tomorrow I’ll come back with my flowers for her.” And I came every day. And from then on I brought flowers, not only mine but from friends and people who knew her. And I went to a flower van outside the Michelin restaurant (Bibendum in the Fulham Road) and he said: “What are they for?” And I told him, and every day after that he insisted I take flowers to her for nothing…’ ‘And they (the flowers) were around her, over her coffin representing the flowers of the world, and I said to Prince Charles, “These flowers represent the people, thousands and millions of flowers all around the world that people want to give to Princess Diana.” I’ve never felt like that in my life. I have experienced personal loss…but the public’s reaction was extraordinary…’

One other item mentioned in Bradford’s book caught my attention. While Queen Elizabeth seemingly struggled with her decision to recognize Diana’s death with the pomp and circumstance demanded by the people, personally she too had to deal with the passing of her former daughter-in-law, the mother of the queen’s beloved grand-children. Bradford wrote of Dickie Arbiter, the most experienced of royal officers who had worked for the Waleses before their divorce,

Image via Wikipedia

Contrary to public perception, the Queen was, Arbiter said, ‘very grief-stricken’ by Diana’s death. ‘On the day of the funeral when the Royal Family came out of Buckingham Palace as the gun carriage carrying Diana’s coffin passed, the Queen bowed. And the only other time that the Queen bows is at the Cenotaph.’

…there are the rumors…there are the myths…and then there’s…the truth…hugmamma.

Image by nekonomania via Flickr

…princess diana…england’s rose…

Diana, Princess of Wales, at the Cannes film f...

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the last word…diana

Posted on June 28, 2011 by hugmamma

Image via Wikipedia

Am almost done reading Sarah Bradford’s Diana – Finally, The Complete Story. It really does seem to be the definitive last word, with contributions from previously unheard sources. Now that Diana, the Princess of Wales, is no longer at the center of the maelstrom that had become her life, and Prince Charles and Camilla have moved on together into older age, and Prince William has married his Kate, those “in the know” are inclined to come forward with the truth, as they witnessed it.

“The definitive biography of the Princess of Wales. In this authoritative account, Bradford paints a revealing, accurate portrait of a complex woman flawed and adored in equal measure.” —Daily Telegraph

“A very sad story. Bradford tells it eloquently, but it’s her admirable detachment that leaves one pitying all, not one, of the characters involved.” —Antonia Fraser, The Guardian Review

“Forget about tawdry revelations–Bradford takes us to the heart of the People’s Princess, examining her relationships with her staff, friends and family as well as her children, husband, lovers and the royal family. Authoritative and admirably balanced, it draws on new sources and firsthand accounts.” –Tatler

Image via Wikipedia

I won’t rehash the past, I’ll leave that to your potential to purchase the book, but I did want to call attention to the last charitable cause Diana undertook, which no individual seems desirous of undertaking in the wake of her untimely death years ago. And that is the detonation or better, extinction, of land mines. While those who sought to undermine the Princess of Wales would’ve labeled her a “basket case” or a “nut job” for walking through fields which had been cleared of landmines, there are those who would beg to differ.

According to William Deedes, a traveling companion on Diana’s landmine research trips to Angola and Bosnia

she sought to address herself to various issues in the world which were being neglected. There were millions of them (landmines) scattered round the world. They lurked wherever there had been conflict. A few charitable organisations were engaged in locating and lifting them, but it was discouraging as well as dangerous work because more mines were being constantly laid in the wars bedevilling Africa. The manufacturers of these mines represented a huge vested interest, which reduced the chances…of an international ban…defence forces in Britain, America and much of Europe saw the mines, properly laid and charted, as legitimate means of defence…

…’Nobody took a blind bit of interest in landmines until she (Diana) came along,’…

Deedes went on to say that the journalists who accompanied Diana on these trips were accustomed to “royal visits in daintier surroundings than Angola” and were, therefore, ” ‘dismayed’ by the state of the capital, Luanda, with stinking rubbish piled high in the hot streets.

Sunday Times reporter Christina Lamb, a young, veteran war reporter cynical of Diana’s efforts there, had a change of heart after witnessing her work firsthand. “She was impressed: despite the heat and the smells Diana had come to work and work she did. Angola, said Lamb, was one of the few remaining places in the world where most people had no idea who she was, and therefore it was all the more remarkable to see the effect she had on the amputees she went among. ‘The Red Cross whisked us from one hospital to the next,’ Lamb wrote,…”

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each with ever more horrific scenes of skeletal figures with missing arms, missing legs, and blown off heads–victims of some of the 16m landmines scattered round the country. Many of the injuries were so gruesome I could not bear to look, despite years of Third World reporting. But Diana never turned her head away. Instead, she had something I’d only ever seen before in Nelson Mandela–a kind of aura that made people want to be with her, and a completely natural, straight-from-the-heart sense of how to bring hope to those who seemed to us to have little to live for.

Her cynicism ” ‘wiped out’,” Lamb went on to say ” ‘That Lady-with-the-Lamp performance wasn’t just for the cameras,’ “

Once, at a hospital in Huambo when the photographers had all flown back to their air-conditioned hotels to wire their pictures, I watched Diana, unaware that any journalists were still present, sit and hold the hand of Helena Ussova, a seven-year-old who’d had her intestines blown to pieces by a mine. For what seemed an age the pair just sat, no words needed. When Diana finally left, the young girl struggled through her pain to ask me if the beautiful lady was an angel…At the end of the Angola trip Diana said that the lasting image she’d take away was of that terribly ill young girl.

Image via Wikipedia

…one for the ages…diana…the people’s princess…hugmamma.

in the aftermath…#1

Posted on May 3, 2011 by hugmamma

President Obama confirms death of Osama bin Laden

Just as the media was rife with coverage of the royal wedding, so now the spinmeisters are squeezing every last bit of life out of the latest news, Osama bin Laden’s demise. All the details have been revealed and recycled ad nauseum. So too have the endless probing questions put forth by the journalists. It’s made me realize that they’re just doing their jobs, as we all are, prince and princesses, presidents, housewives, reporters. So rather than regurgitate the known facts, I prefer to share some insightful opinions from different perspectives.

Obama’s Finest Hour
by Bret Stephens

There was only one discordant note in Barack Obama’s otherwise masterly speech Sunday night announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden. It came when the president invoked the word “justice” to describe what had just been done to the architect of 9/11.

It wasn’t quite the word he was looking for. But actions speak louder than words.

Justice as we in the West have come to know it, requires due process. It takes place in a courtroom under the supervision of a judge. Prosecutors must prove their case; defendants are entitled to a competent defense; rules of evidence and procedure must scrupulously be followed. A jury must render its verdict. Punishment can be neither cruel nor unusual.

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This is the sort of justice the hapless Attorney General Eric Holder had in mind when he sought to have bin Laden’s operational lieutenant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, tried in a civilian Manhattan courthouse. The people of New York City revolted. KSM will now get better than he deserves in a military tribunal.

As for bin Laden, what was meted out to him was vengeance. Vengeance pure and simple, sweet and sound. Vengeance cathartic, uplifting, necessary and right. Got a problem with that?

I don’t. Nor did the people who poured into the streets Sunday night to cheer outside the White House, or the crowd I saw Monday morning as I walked the perimeter of Ground Zero.

“Why does everyone root for the avenger in feature films?” asks my friend Thane Rosenbaum, who teaches law at Fordham and is writing a book about revenge. “Is it because people are immoral in the dark, or is it because we all realize that the avenger’s quest and duty is righteous and true?”

Thane’s point isn’t that vengeance is better than justice. It’s that there can be no true justice without vengeance. Oddly enough, this is something Barack Obama, Chicago liberal, seems to better grasp than George W. Bush, Texas cowboy.

The former president was fond of dilating on the point, as he put it just after 9/11, that “ours is a nation that does not seek revenge, but we do seek justice.” What on Earth did that mean? Of course we sought revenge. “Ridding the world of evil,” Mr. Bush’s other oft-stated ambition, was nonsense if we didn’t make a credible go of ridding the world of the very specific evil named Osama bin Laden.

For all of Mr. Bush’s successes–and yes, there were a few, including the vengeance served that other specific evil known as Saddam Hussein and those Gitmo interrogations that yielded bin Laden’s location–you can trace the decline of his presidency from the moment he said, in March 2002, that “I really don’t care (where bin Laden is). It’s not that important.

Outside of White House after death of Osama bi...

Wrong. It was of the essence. Americans didn’t merely want to be secured against another attack–an achievement experienced only in the absence of fresh outrages and appreciated only in hindsight. Americans wanted vengeance. It’s what they had wanted after Pearl Harbor, too: what took the Marines up Mt. Suribach, the Rangers up Point du Hoc. Revenge is a glue that holds a fractious nation together in the service of a great and arduous cause.

Mr. Obama, for all his talk of justice, understands this. Or, in the education that is the presidency, he has come to understand it. Maybe it’s true, as his critics allege, that his steady focus on finding bin Laden was done for the sake of declaring victory in the war on terror so that he could start rolling up America’s commitments in Afghanistan. If this is his “Mission Accomplished” moment, he will come to regret it.

But I doubt Mr. Obama is that dumb. Nor is there any reason not to take him at his word when he said Sunday that bin Laden’s death “does not mark the end of our effort.” Osama is dead; his franchisees carry on. Count on a self-styled bin Laden Martyrs’ Brigade to take credit for whatever terrorist atrocity comes next.

But even if it does, it will lack the sinister potency of previous attacks. The air of mystery that sustained al Quaeda all the way through Sunday night has finally been laid bare, and it looks like an ugly house that can be located in seconds on Google Maps.

Here is something that Mr. Obama, more than most Western leaders, deeply understands: Symbolism matters. It matters that the ultimate symbol of Islamist rage did not wear a ring of invisibility. It matters that he was taken out not by a laser-guided bomb, but by American fighting men whose names we may someday know. It matters that the story of 9/11 has been brought full circle, even as the fight against terrorists carries on.

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There’s been a whiff of sour grapes in some of the right-wing commentary about the president’s speech. Too much emphasis on the first-person pronoun, not enough credit to President Bush, and so on. It’s unbecoming. If ever there was a doubt about just how American Mr. Obama is, Sunday’s raid eliminates it better than any long-form birth certificate. This was his finest hour. It’s for the rest of us, avenged at long last, to rejoice.

(Write to bstephens@wsj.com)

william and his kate…my wish for

Posted on April 26, 2011 by hugmamma

Image by Pesky Library via Flickr

We are being inundated with coverage of the upcoming royal wedding between the future king of England and his queen, William and Kate. Ever since they announced their engagement to the world, they seem always to be smiling. They seem to wear their happiness well. Perhaps they have already learned what so many married couples take decades to figure out. If they have, then they may not need the advice of relationship expert, Leo Buscaglia. But it never hurts to heap on the well wishes for longevity in what already appears to be a solid friendship, and a grand love affair. Buscaglia writes in his book, Loving Each Other…

We cannot look for joy as we do a lost article of clothing. We make our own happiness. we define it for ourselves and experience it in our unique way. No one can be happy for us nor tell us what should make us happy, though people will always try. The sad fact is that we fall into Madison Avenue traps which convince us that happiness is the right drink, the flashy automobile, the scented deodorant, bursting-with-health cereal or the special snack food. Even the wisest among us are seduced by the exuberant TV ad or the seductive graphic into believing that we, too, can change our lives if we switch to a new mouthwash. We never stop to think that there is nothing in the world which can be given or denied us that will bring us happiness unless we decide it. In fact, the happiest people in the world would probably still be happy if stripped of everything except life.

Image by JeanM1 via Flickr

…Perhaps much happiness is lost in the pursuit of it. Hawthorne in his American Notebooks said that happiness always comes incidentally. “Make it the object of pursuit,” he added, “and it leads us on a wild goose chase and is never attained.” He suggests that we should lose our way and follow something totally unrelated. In that way we often happen on happiness without ever dreaming it would be there.

We are far too rational in our relationships, far too ordered, organized and predictable. We need to find a place, just this side of madness and irrationality, where we can, from time to time, leave the mundane and move into spontaneity and serendipity, a level that includes a greater sense of freedom and risk–an active environment full of surprises, which encourages a sense of wonder. Here, ideas and feelings which would otherwise be difficult to state can be expressed freely. A bond of love is easy to find in an environment of joy. When we laugh together we bypass reason and logic, as the clown does. We speak a universal language. We feel closer to one another.

Royal Wedding Flags Go Up On Regents Street, L...

Image by DG Jones via Flickr

…Joy and happiness are simply states of mind. As such they can help us to find creative solutions. When we feel joyful, euphoric, happy, we are more open to life, more capable of seeing things clearly and handling daily tensions.

…”Joy comes into our lives,” Joseph Addison says, “when we have something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”

Live fully and with abandon. Love totally and without fear. Hope splendidly and never relinquish the dream. These will help us but joy will only be ours when we choose it. As Abraham Lincoln reminded us, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Image by Ben Sutherland via Flickr

and may I add…

long life and…everlasting happiness…to sylvia’s king and queen…william and…his kate…hugmamma.

“news trivia,” wall street journal

Posted on January 28, 2011 by hugmamma

“david vs. goliath”………..Corporate giant Wal-Mart got a “stone between the eyes” when historical preservation groups united, using their “slingshot” to stop the world’s largest retailer from building on a 52-acre site bordering Wilderness Battlefield. It was here that “Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee clashed for the first time in battle in 1864.” Evidently there were 30,000 casualties with neither side winning the battle conclusively. But it looks like the “little man” went nine rounds and won this time. Yayyy for “David!!!” (Wall Street Journal, 1/27/11-“Retailer Retreats From Civil War Battlefield”)

“protestors to have front row seats at royal wedding”………Looks like 62-year-old Brian Haw has had his ticket to William and Kate’s April 29th wedding since June 2001. Did he know something the rest of the world only learned recently? No. It seems Haw has been a long-time “resident” of Parliament Square, a small grassy park, that sits across the street from famed Westminster Abbey.

As a peace campaigner protesting sanctions imposed upon Iran, Haw gained entrée into “a very, very beautiful part of town,” according to Colin Barrow, leader of Westminster City Council. Spending most nights there in tents, Haw and his associates, seem able to invoke squatter’s rights because “The court of appeal made an exception for Mr. Haw, partly because he has been protesting so long, allowing him to continue to camp while his case is reviewed by the high court.”

So while 7 foot-tall metal barriers were erected around Parliament Square, per orders from London Mayor Boris Johnson, space was made for Haw’s 5 tents. Protestors for a variety of other causes who followed Haw’s example over the years, moved their encampments “to the adjacent pavement, which technically doesn’t fall under Mr. Johnson’s order, but rather the Westminster City Council. Hoping to close that loophole, the government last November proposed to outlaw tents in and around the square. But the law is unlikely to be passed in time for the big wedding.”

Once Haw pitched his tent in 2001, didn’t the politicians foresee that he was setting a precedent? I’m sure they weren’t naive enough to think he was just going to go away. Why would he give up prime real estate once he “dug in his heels?” (Wall Street Journal, 1/26/11-“Westminster Squatters Just Aren’t On Wills and Kate’s Guest List”)

“still overpaid, but why ?”……… The L.A. Angels hired Toronto outfielder Vernon Wells for “a $23 million salary in 2011.” In doing so the team is guaranteed to have baseball’s “most expensive outfield–one that actually costs more than the entire payroll of several teams.” Fellow outfielders Torii Hunter and Bobby Abreu will make $18 million and $9 million, respectively. Meanwhile the Angels are “still on the hook for the remaining $11 million on Gary Matthews Jr.,” who was sent packing in early 2010. The total payout costs the team “43% more than the next priciest group.” Unfortunately, this outfielder foursome “combined for 9.7 Wins Above Replacement–a metric that measures a player’s total value over a Triple-A call-up.” The Red Sox quartet scored roughly the same, but the foursome, Carl Crawford, J.D. Drew, Mike Cameron, and Jacoby Ellsbury, are earning almost $22 million less than their counterparts in Anaheim. “Even the much-maligned Chicago Cubs outfield of Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, and Marlon Byrd produced more value for significantly less money.” I may not know baseball, but I know when money’s being flushed down the toilet…big time! I continue to maintain what I posted in “a hand up,” on 7/27/10. Millionaire athletes should consider investing a portion of their mega bucks into helping the careers of athletes, like ballet dancers who are as talented, but are paid “peanuts” by comparison. (Wall Street Journal,1/26/11-“The Absurdly Expensive Angels Outfield)

and the world goes round and round, sometimes spinning upside down…hugmamma.

“normal,” whatever that means

Posted on January 16, 2011 by hugmamma

If it weren’t for the fact that Prince William is heir to the British throne, and Kate Middleton will be Queen of England one day, these two star-crossed lovers might just be any normal pair of 20-something year olds venturing forward into holy matrimony. And as Prince Charles, waiting in the wings to be king, so memorably stated when becoming engaged to the country’s beloved Diana, “love, whatever that means,” is what their son and his fiance seem to truly feel for one another.

In “William and Kate,” a biography which hit bookstore shelves recently, their courtship rings of normalcy. Boy meets girl, they like each other, become a couple, and liking evolves into deep caring for one another. In all normal relationships, boy still feels the need to “sow his wild oats.” And in this case, the boy is no different.

Not being a subject of the royal crown, and living thousands of miles from the scene of the action, I was amazed to learn how MUCH Prince William “sowed his wild oats.” In that respect, he seemed very much like his father, Prince Charles. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a prude, but I don’t have a son, I’ve only a daughter. So I’ve not the experience of seeing first-hand, a young man carouse with a steady stream of beautiful women. I can’t even look to my husband’s experience since I was his first, and last, girlfriend before we married. Prior to our meeting, he’d been in a Catholic seminary after completing 8th grade. And because he was pretty shy around girls as a youngster, I’m almost certain his experience where they were concerned was nil.

Prince William had enough “honey” to keep the women buzzing around him. Son of one of the most celebrated women of all time, future king, gifted by the gods with a striking countenance, and exuding a quiet boyishness which encourages the maternal instinct in members of the opposite sex, Wills had no trouble attracting the girls. None. His mother would’ve been proud of him, as I’m sure all parents are when they’re offspring are found attractive and desirable. That increases the size of the “pool” of potential mates, when the time comes for settling down and raising grandchildren. I’m a mom, I too think about such matters. Of William, author Christopher Anderson writes,

William, on the other hand, danced wildly onstage with a succession of women before collapsing at his table in a drunken stupor. Wills’s bodyguards had to pick him up and, said eyewitness Sue Thompson, “literally carry him off.”

The scene would be repeated over the next several weeks, particularly when Purple had one of its “Dirty Disco” nights. Before long, several of the women William groped and kissed on these evenings began talking to the newspapers.

“William has too much of a roving eye to settle down,” twenty-nine-year-old Purple patron Solange Jacobs said after being told William reportedly had a girlfriend named Kate Middleton. Jacobs was among several women who danced, drank, and snogged with William one night. “The way he acted with me, he didn’t seem to be in love with anyone else. He also chatted with a dancer and eyed up a girl in the VIP area. You wouldn’t have guessed he was seeing Kate. Wills looked very much on the prowl. Kate better watch out if she doesn’t want to be made a fool of.”

William was not above using his being a royal as a come-on. He took Jacobs’s phone number with the promise that he would call her and invite her to his palace. At no time, apparently, did he ever mention that he had a girlfriend. “I wish Kate the best of luck,” Jacobs said. “She might need it.”

And Kate’s response? The smart girl, Camilla’s precise words were “Miss Middleton is a very smart girl,” decided that ” ‘If anyone is going to have fun with him,’ she chided Will’s drinking buddy Guy Pelly, ‘it’s going to be me.’ ” So the next time William frequented any of his favorite London nightspots, “Kate was nestled at his side.” Her reason for such an understanding attitude? His family was to blame. After all, his parents had cheated, and “the Windsor men had a long history of womanizing.” She believed William’s love for her would never cause him to intentionally hurt her.

I’m betting Kate will make an excellent queen, standing loyally by her king, come hell or high water. It seems her calm, cool-headedness will weather whatever storms married life might rustle up. As William himself noted to his friend Guy Pelly,

Kate was, in many ways, becoming the one true constant in his life. “I can rely on her totally…She is completely there for me. I’ve never had anyone in my life like Kate.”

Yes, William and Kate separated for 6 weeks because he was unsure of his commitment to her at the time. But wily Kate pulled out all the stops to win her prince back. Letting him see that she was doing just fine in the company of other men, drove William to finally admit that “he loved her, and that he could not see himself marrying anyone else.”

And I’m betting William and Kate will indeed live happily ever after…if she has anything to do with it.