Diana’s Funeral

Watching the funeral procession and rites for Princess Diana on television brought vividly to my mind a renewed understanding of the meaning of civilization. Seeing all those people who voluntarily came to mourn--not requested, not required--compelled me to realize how much the natural instinct to share human feelings resides in all of us--that bond of the human spirit that binds us all.

I was deeply moved by seeing the shared values in the faces of so many people; values that seem to lie dormant under the surface of our lives, only to become manifest in a time of sudden tragedy. It was a time I shall not forget.

RICHARD SAYLOR

San Bernardino

* Diana’s funeral was, for me, stunning. Her coffin on the gun carriage, drawn by horses through the streets toward Westminster Abbey, moving so slowly and reverently that every moment of emotion stood still with each person in the crowd and with all of us out here in the world who stood with them.

Then after the ceremony, the hearse carrying her coffin as it wound through the streets of London, piled with flowers thrown by the people of England and others who had come from around the world.

Just an amazing thing, those flowers on the car, the intimacy of it from the people.

JANE WARDLOW PRETTYMAN

Santa Barbara

* Howard Rosenberg just does not get it in his Sept. 7 column on Princess Diana (“A ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ of Pomp and Puff”). He does not comprehend the power of embodying people’s dreams and fantasies, of knowing Diana’s life and development as if she were one’s own, and of connecting with one compassionately caring for the desperately ill and impoverished.

Instead, he attempts to diminish Princess Diana’s power and the expressed sadness and sorrow by making fun, using ridicule and being coldhearted. In the process, Rosenberg diminishes himself.

MADELINE DeANTONIO

Encino

* Do I understand correctly this modern British royalty deal? The royal family retains its enormous wealth and privilege in exchange for having millions of people daily observe, discuss and criticize the royals’ every word and action. Surely the devil himself contrived this pact.

BILL WEBER

La Canada

* Everyone who is “devastated” by the death of Princess Diana should turn off their television sets, trash their tabloid newspapers and volunteer to assist one of the charities or causes Diana supported. If each mourner would invest the same level of energy, love and positive involvement that Diana invested in this complex world of pain, challenge and suffering, the meaning of her life and the sorrow of her death would, indeed, be transformed into something positive.

If, however, everyone merely elevates Diana to a one-dimensional icon status, like Elvis, Marilyn Monroe or Evita, this senseless tragedy will be compounded, and the life of a vibrant soul will be sadly diminished.

NANCY J. RIGG