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dear sybersyblings this week has been very odd for me and, no doubt, for a lot of you too i had always admired diana her sense of fun her obvious caring for people her impatience at the restrictions of stuffy protocol who else had the 'gumption' to be the first to hold the hand of an aids patient or a leper there was no 'judgement' in her whatsoever there was no hint of 'status' consciousness or 'hierarchy' [despite her background being more 'regal' than the royals] there was only pure empathy and caring and concern and love mixed with a lively sense of humour a true humanitarian i liked simon coles' dad's story about diana especially 'so you're the pusher?' !!! so many people had their individual reasons for relating to diana so personally as if they knew her intimately and she knew them that was her secret she DID know them and they DID know her she admitted to being imperfect and told the world it was okay for all of us to be imperfect when she 'told all' in that panorama tv interview i was touched by her honesty and openness about her failed marriage about her feelings of worthlessness and 'imperfection' about her bouts with bulimia and depression and suicide attempts and her recovery from all of that pain despite her 'trial by fire' or maybe due to it she believed fervently in giving what ever love she had to whoever needed it she was married in 1981 i moved from my lifetime home in 1981 she went through troubles and came out stronger i feel i've been through a similar 'test' by saying this i don't mean to compare myself to her rather to illustrate the type of 'connection' i felt with her on almost a 'personal' level despite never meeting her when the news of her death reached me the intensity of my reaction surprised me and i get the impression that a lot of other people have been surprised in the same way i even felt compelled to 'do' something and went to her website, stared at it for a minute or two and then wrote the message i posted earlier i have never done anything like that before in my life but again i get the impression that a lot of other people have been surprised in the same way yesterday the lineups to sign the condolence books were 15 hours long the centre of london was unusually quiet despite the crowds the bbc interviewed a sri lankan man with his daughter who were in the queue for the condolence books he was quietly resolute and politely incredulous at the interviewer's questions don't you know the line is 15 hours long why are you standing in line in person you could watch on tv his reaction was how can you think of asking such things she worked for and loved the ordinary people with all her heart i am an ordinary person this is the least i can do to pay my respect to her if the lineup lasted until saturday i would be here his teenage daughter echoed her father's sentiments and read the message that she was going to write in the condolence book i saw some of the film made of her visit to angola [some of it narrated by her] in re landmines left behind and all the injuries resulting [lost limbs mostly] she was in an area where prostheses were being fitted and asked permission of a seven year old girl dressed only in her underwear to show on camera how the fitting was done so that she could help bring the world's attention to the situation and maybe help others the girl was very shy and very sweet and said of course her left thigh was a stump of only about 8 inches long later di held her on her lap as she continued talking to others when a camera got too close to the girl di pushed it away firmly and finally it's not just the fact that she touched ordinary people but due to her position in the british commonwealth she could and did spread her touch worldwide individual by individual nation by nation faith by faith race by race this is a unique phenomenon in that ordinary people are united in deep emotion and are being heard and are being observed by the world and by each other as loving generous caring and thoughtful ordinary people we rarely see that on tv and certainly never at this scale an estimated two and a half billion people will be watching the funeral on tv tomorrow and an estimated 6 million will be in london in person we usually only see violence and close-ups of the result of hate and anger and those images only foster more of the same the shock of this loss may turn into a wake-up call on all sorts of levels a couple of grocery store chains in the us have announced that any sleazoid tabloid with pictures of the crash will be boycotted the blame/game of the paparazzi/driver fault will probably be relatively unimportant in the long run i was wondering how diana would view that squabble if the crash had involved someone else i think she would brush it aside as irrelevant and focus instead on the survivors and easing their pain i think the positive effects of this phenomenon are going to reverberate for a long time possibly with more impact than if diana and dodi had remained with us she was in the process of discarding all the old 'crap' [her own word] and entering into a mutually loving relationship for probably the first time dodi's family was warm and close and kind it drew diana like a magnet maybe that's the lesson everyone is going to take into their hearts your syb-sis janet