By Francis Ewherido
Will it happen? When? Yes, it is happening today from noon at St. George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle, where Prince Harry was christened when he was three months and nine days old on the 24th of December 1984. I am one of those who have been very happy and excited since Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle announced their engagement on November 27 last year.
So much water has passed under the bridge since then. There were those, who wanted to play the race card, but beat a fast retreat when they realized they were weeping louder than the bereaved. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Harry’s grandmother and Prince Charles, his father, had sanctioned the union, who are you, a meddlesome interloper, as the lawyers call such people, to open your filthy racial mouth, spewing personal hate, to challenge other people’s personal decision that has nothing to do with your life?
People must learn to understand that, whether people involved are celebrities, public figures or royalty, marriage remains a personal matter. You must respect boundaries. I have always advocated that family and close friends can get involved during courtship, but their involvement must remain in the realm of intervention, not interference. I have explained the difference in the past, but for clarity and people reading this column for the first time, I will do it again. Interference means, “to meddle,” “to obstruct a process,” “be a hindrance.” Intervention here means “mediation”
This critical difference is very important and you must know it, if not friends and relatives from hell can easily derail your marriage plans. You must have been reading the rubbish some of Markle half siblings and relatives have been vomiting. In the last interview by his half brother, he warned Prince Harry not to marry Meghan, his own half sister. He said Meghan is not good enough for the royal family. Then he revealed his true colour. He is angry that she did not extend her wedding invitation to him specifically and some other family members. He wanted to use the wedding to shore up his nonexistent respectability and visibility. Now he has written another letter begging Meghan to invite him. Too bad, no deal.
He also felt Meghan should have used the opportunity of the wedding to bring together their broken family. Fine, but wedding is a personal matter between the pair getting married. Their interest is paramount, not the Markle’s larger family. If they do not want their wedding to be used to resolve age long family feud, so be it. If I may ask, why was the family feud not resolved before now? And why can it not be resolved after the wedding. Must he distract the couple with resolution of a family feud on their special day? Are weddings the best platforms to resolve family feuds?
There was uncertainty over the presence of Meghan’s father at the wedding after a scandal over staging paparazzi photos of himself. Now it is certain he is not attending because he just had a heart surgery. This Markle crowd sef; na wah for dem! But Meghan is a strong woman; she will be fine.
Some members of the Markle family only got media attention because of Markle’s engagement to Harry. The ingrates are already benefiting from their sister. Yet they went to the media to try to destroy her. But it happens so often even in our clime. Spouses go to the media to try to ruin their other halves due to hate and pettiness. Estranged lovers vow to use mass and social media to destroy people they have children with because of love gone awry. Then they hire some cheap blackmailers who masquerade as media consultants. Blackmailers are only out to make money and haven’t got your interest, bitter soul.
These bitter lovers forget that the people they want to destroy are fathers or mothers of the children they had together and the children get affected directly or indirectly. And who even told you that you can destroy God’s creation with God on the throne? Have you not heard of people falling into pits they dug for others. It is very irritating when mere mortals arrogate divine powers to themselves. See now, Harry and Meghan are going ahead with their marriage, what can her wicked half siblings and relatives do about it? If cannot rejoice with people, you should at least let them be.
One of the reasons I love Prince Harry so much is because he follows his heart. He crossed many rivers to reach his decision to marry Meghan. They include River Meghan, a black woman; River Meghan, a divorcee; River Meghan, an actress; River Meghan, an American; River Meghan, a product from a broken and feuding family; River Meghan an older woman [Camilla, 70, is older than Prince Charles, 69, so there is nothing new about Prince Harry marrying an older Meghan really] and may be other rivers unknown to others.
Prince Harry is also a good student of history. He does not want to make his father’s mistake. Prince Charles’ childhood flame was Miss Camilla Rosemary Shand, but he ended up marrying the late Lady Diana Spencer, Harry’s mother. From the beginning, the marriage was troubled and became clinically dead some years after. Everything that happened thereafter was mechanical until 1996 when they divorced. Like or hate him, Prince Charles looks a much happier man with Duchess Camilla.
Marriage is slippery and very delicate, you never know. But my gut feeling tells me that this is going to be one happy and successful marriage. I wish Prince Harry and the soon-to-be HRH the Duchess of Sussex a happy married life. I wish them peace of mind that surpasses human understanding in their marriage.
I learnt Meghan loves children; I wish her fruitfulness, children who will make them proud; strong willed children who follow their heart, not what others say, just like their father. After all, lions beget lions, not goats. No matter the quantity of goat meat a lion consumes in its life time, it will still give birth to lions. The children will need their father’s strong will because they are going to be born into a world that will judge them by the colour of their skin and not the content of their character. Never mind that they will probably look every inch Caucasian, but that black blood in Meghan from her maternal roots is all that matters to some people.
