Happy birthday to the incomparable Prince Harry! The youngest son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana turns 36 years old today.
A birthday is a great time for celebration. Harry certainly has a lot to celebrate. He's finally found peace as his family has settled into their new California home. He and wife Meghan Markle seem more in love each and every day. They have a beautiful son and tons of time to spend with him.
There is a bittersweet tinge to this special moment, however. Harry is ringing in the same birthday that was his mother's last. Diana was 36 years old when she died in 1997. It's a difficult milestone to reach for anyone who has lost a parent at a young age. Surely, Diana is heavy on Harry's mind on his special day.
There's also a bittersweetness in being so far from the rest of his family. Harry hasn't seen the royals in person since March. As complicated as things have been, he surely misses them. It's a time of longing for the whole world, and Harry isn't exempt.
Prince Harry is 36 years old! The Duke of Sussex celebrated his 36th birthday on September 15. It's the first year that Harry will spend his birthday in the US, settled in at his new California home with wife Meghan Markle and son Archie Harrison.
It should be a very happy birthday for Harry. After a year of great change, the next chapter is well on its way. His decision to step back as a senior royal was surely not an easy one. Leaving behind the life you've always known, even if you've reportedly grown to resent it, is surely an emotional process.
It seems Harry's relationships with the royal family are healing. The Cambridges, Prince Charles and Camilla, and Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip all took to social media to share well-wishes for the family's favorite redhead.
"Wishing a very happy birthday to Prince Harry today! ," the Cambridges shared.
While William, Kate, and their team chose to leave Harry's title out of the birthday post, Clarence House did not.
"Wishing a very happy birthday to The Duke of Sussex today! ," shared the account. It's telling that Prince Charles still feels that, despite everything, Harry should hold onto his dukedom.
"Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy birthday!" The Royal Family account also shared. They then added a description of the photo chosen, where the Queen's back is to the camera as she speaks with her grandson.
" The Queen and The Duke during a Queen's Young Leaders reception at Buckingham Palace in 2017."
There's no denying that there's a bittersweetness about this particular birthday. As on many special occasions, Harry is likely feeling the absence of his mother. It was just 8 weeks after Diana's own 36th birthday when she was in the Parisian car wreck that took her life.
It was speculated that Prince William struggled with turning 36 in 2018. As royal commentator Victoria Arbiter noted, "I'm sure it's not lost on William that today he turns the same age his mother was when she died," she wrote.
"Many people who've lost a parent at a young age have said [it's] a very odd feeling to reach that milestone."
Additionally, William found himself away from his wife and children on the occasion, which couldn't have made matters easier.
Diana's 36th birthday was a celebration of a new chapter in her life, one that was tragically cut short. She was defining herself separate from the royal family, raising her boys, and truly enjoying life.
"There is a kind of serenity," Gianni Versace told Vanity Fair in a profile published the day before Diana's last birthday.
"I had a fitting with her last week for new suits and clothing for spring, and she is so serene. It is a moment in her life, I think, when she's found herself — the way she wants to live."
She spent that day celebrating herself. Tina Brown, the author of The Diana Chronicles, says she spent the day admiring the 90 bouquets she received. She also got a special call from Harry, who got a group of his school friends to sing her happy birthday.
That night, she was the guest of honor at the 100th-anniversary celebration of the Tate Gallery in London. She wore Queen Mary's Art Deco Emerald Choker and a black-beaded lace evening dress made by Moroccan designer Jacques Azagury.
Diana would have turned 59 this past July, and Harry remembered her on that day. He delivered a passionate, heartfelt speech for the virtual Diana Awards ceremony.
"I know that my mother has been an inspiration to many of you and I can assure you she would have been fighting your corner," he said.
"Like many of you, she never took the easy route, she never took the popular one, or the comfortable one. But she stood for something. And she stood up for people who needed it."
Harry also visited a Los Angeles preschool with Meghan and planted Diana's favorite flowers, forget-me-nots.
Eighteen years ago, on Harry's 18th birthday, he gave his first official interview to the British Press Association. There, he vowed to carry on Diana's work.
Harry praised Diana, who he said "had more guts than anybody" to take on lesser-championed causes.
"The way she got close to people and went for the sort of charities and organisations that everybody else was scared to go near, such as land mines in the Third World. She got involved in things that nobody had done before, AIDS, for example."
"She had more guts than anybody else. I want to carry on the things that she didn't quite finish. I have always wanted to, but was too young."
That same week, he carried out his first solo royal engagement, visiting sick children at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Diana remained president of the London hospital even after her divorce from Prince Charles.
"It was quite difficult at first, being younger and not as experienced as some of the people I was meeting," he said.
"I have seen my mother doing it so many times and she was so good at it. But the more I do it in the future, the better I hope to become."
Earlier that year, the underage Harry had gotten into trouble after being caught drinking and smoking marijuana. As he went through his early 20s, he became involved in more scandals over his behavior.
While his personal life went through a murky and unclear place, his dedication to helping others never did. Harry was humanized to the public during that time, from those who worried for him to those who appreciated seeing that even royals screw up sometimes.
In his 30s, Harry has gained clarity on how a lot of his dark times related to an inability and unwillingness to emotionally deal. In recent years, he's really taken that to task, and it seems that Meghan has helped immensely in that process. Coincidentally, she was 36 when the two got engaged and married.
Thirty-six may be a complicated age for Harry emotionally, but it also looks to be the year he finds his peace. Now that he's established a home base with Meghan and Archie, he can continue his focus on helping others and continuing Diana's work.
The royal family may sometimes knock Harry for being too sensitive, but it seems the prince is simply following his heart in a way that's radical to an institution based on rules and ruling. There's a bittersweetness in them not being a part (at least in the physical sense) of this next chapter in Harry's journey, but hopefully, it is an absence that will help everyone find peace with his decisions.
