The passing of a loved one is always a sad time, but the royal family might have gotten a gift this year with the pandemic happening in Prince Philip‘s final year of life. It gave everyone, especially Queen Elizabeth, the gift of time. What many people don’t realize is that after her husband of 73 years retired from public service in 2017, they spent quite a bit of time apart.
The Queen was still traveling and serving her country while Prince Philip was home at Windsor Castle. The lockdown afforded them the time to get to know each other again by dining together each evening and taking walks in their manicured gardens, according to Vanity Fair. Those sweet moments happened because the world came to a complete stop for almost a year. They wouldn’t have had those same opportunities if Queen Elizabeth had to keep up her usual hectic schedule.
He was even able to celebrate beautiful milestones with his family in an unprecedented year, including his 99th birthday last June and Princess Beatrice’s socially distant wedding in July. His last Christmas wasn’t at Sandringham with all of the generations of family members gathering for the holiday. It was a more subdued affair with just the two of them at Windsor Castle, which might have been a wonderful way to reflect on the life they created together.
It seems that Prince Philip also knew that his time on this earth was coming to end, but he had one final wish — and that was to be surrounded by the comforts of his wife and his belongings. He was fortunate to be released from the hospital in March and “everyone was very relieved when he was able to go home,” an insider told Vanity Fair. For Prince Philip, his last year in life might have been harder than others because he was fighting for his health, but he and his Queen created loving memories in a year we all had to take a step back and slow down.
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