Prince Harry has opened up about bereavement and grief during a conversation with the founder of a charity that supports children who have lost a parent serving in the British armed forces.
“You convince yourself that the person you’ve lost wants you, or you need to be sad for as long as possible to prove to them that they are missed,” said the Duke of Sussex, whose mother, Princess Diana, died when he was 12 years old.
“But then there’s this realization of, no, they must want me to be happy,” he told Nikki Scott, founder of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, in a video released by the charity Thursday.
Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997. She was 36 years old.
Harry went on to underline the importance of talking about emotions during the grieving process.
“That’s the hardest thing, especially for kids, I think, which is, ‘I don’t want to talk about it because it will make me sad, but once realizing that if I do talk about it, and I’m celebrating their life, then actually, things become easier,’” he said.
Harry is a global ambassador for Scotty’s Little Soldiers, and sat down for a conversation with Scott ahead of Armed Forces Day on June 29.
Scott told the duke about the moment she had to tell her son, Kai, that his father, Cpl. Lee Scott, had been killed while serving in Afghanistan.
“It was the worst… How do you tell a 5-year-old this,” she said, recalling the feeling that she had “shattered his world” on that day in July 2009.
Scott went on to found the charity in 2010 to help other bereaved military children.
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Each year, 2,100 children lose a parent who served in the UK military, according to Scotty’s Little Soldiers.
The charity currently supports more than 680 members and aims to support more than 1,000 people each year by 2030.
Harry praised Scott for her “incredible” work in setting up the charity.
“It is truly inspirational. I’m really honoured and privileged to be part of Scotty’s now and I really look forward to us doing everything we can to bring in more people, more interest, raise more funds and be able to get the message out there to get more kids the support they so desperately need,” he added in a press release.
A video of their full conversation can be watched on the charity’s website.