
Listen to this story being read by Jessie Stephens, here.
Last night, we watched a funeral that will likely become the biggest global television event in history.
Four billion people were expected to watch the state funeral of HM Queen Elizabeth II, who was the monarch of 15 countries at the time of her death.
Costing an estimated AUD$9 million, Queen Elizabeth's funeral came with an invoice larger than what the average British family will earn in a lifetime. Significantly more.
And who pays for it? It doesn't come from the royal family's fortune, which is worth an estimated $28 billion.
The tax payers will foot the bill. The tax payers, whose cost-of-living expenses have sky-rocketed.
Without knowing any of that, there might have been moments over the last 10 days that have made you somewhat uncomfortable.
There have likely been moments of grief, too. There are few people alive who know a world without Queen Elizabeth. She worked until the very end, displaying a remarkable sense of duty. She represented stoicism and hard work and exhibited impeccable leadership over her 70 year reign.
One might wonder if the queues, the tears and the sharing of memories are also about the moments over the last three years we've not been able to grieve. The funerals that never happened. The bodies buried surrounded by only a handful of loved ones, lockdowns prohibiting the ceremony so many deserved. The pandemic delivered us unimaginable loss – captured by Queen Elizabeth herself, who sat alone in St. George's Chapel wearing a black cloth mask, at Prince Philip's funeral in April last year.