Diana (21 page)

“I was very confused by which area I should go into. Then I found myself being more and more involved with people who were rejected by society—with, I’d say, drug addicts, alcoholism, battered this, battered that—and I found an affinity there. And I respected very much the honesty I found on that level with people I met, because in hospices, for instance, when people are dying they’re much more open and more vulnerable, and much more real than other people. And I appreciated that…. No one sat me down with a piece of paper and said: ‘This is what is expected of you.’ But there again, I’m lucky enough in the fact that I have found my role, and I’m very conscious of it, and I love being with people.”

“I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is a disease of people feeling unloved. And I know that I can give love. For a minute, for half an hour, for a day or a month, but I can give and I’m very happy to do that, and I want to do that. It’s always been my concern to touch people with leprosy, trying to show in a simple action that they are not reviled, nor are we repulsed.”

“I feel close to people whoever they are—that’s why I disturb certain circles. I am much closer to people at the bottom than at the top. I have a real relationship with the most humble people.”

She once told
Vanity Fair:
“Nothing gives me more pleasure now than being able to love and help those in our society who are vulnerable. If I can contribute a little something, then I am more than content.”

After visiting a poor family’s hut in Nepal, Diana declared: “I will never complain again.”

In her final interview for
Le Monde,
Diana mused: “I feel close to people, whoever they are. We’re immediately at the same level on the same wavelength. That’s why I upset certain circles. It’s because I’m much closer to the people at the bottom than the people at the top, and the latter won’t forgive me for it…. My father always taught me to treat everyone as an equal. I’ve always done so, and I’m sure that Harry and William will follow in my footsteps.”

On comforting the sick and dying

On her late-night visits to the sick and dying in hospitals to comfort them: “It is something I love doing.”

“I remember when I used to sit on hospital beds and hold people’s hands, people used to be sort of shocked because they’d never seen this before. To me it was quite normal.”

“I want to walk into a room, be it a hospice for the dying or a hospital for sick children, and feel that I am needed. I want to do, not just to be.”

Comforting angina sufferer Francis Powell when he collapsed in front of her in 1991, she said, “Don’t worry, an ambulance is on its way. You’re going to be all right now. What a thing to happen—you’ve given us all quite a fright.”

In 1993, she reached out to touch lepers in Nepal “to show that they are not reviled.”

When asked whether being with dying people ever drained her, she replied, “No, never. When you discover you can give joy to people like that, there is nothing quite like it. William has begun to understand that, too. And I am hoping it will grow in him.”

“I could [visit the sick and dying, refugees, battered women, and homeless shelters] full-time if I could. I don’t find it at all exhausting.”