The loss of two great women leads to reflections on a friendship that had just begun

By Amanda S.

Early September 1997 will always be remembered as the month the world lost two great women. One was an elderly nun who dedicated her entire adult life to helping poverty stricken people everywhere. The other was a young princess, just starting her life of good work. Both of their good works will live on.

In June of this year, Princess Diana visited Mother Teresa in New York City’s South Bronx, where the founder of the Missionaries of Charity was recuperating from an illness at one of her order’s residences. Just outside the door where these two great women met were dusty tenements and gutted abandoned cars. Mother Teresa was in her element, which, more recently, had become Diana’s too. This is the reason the princess came to meet the nun, to pay her respects, and to honor the work she herself was just beginning.

They met and chatted about the work they loved for approximately an hour. Diana helped Mother Teresa rise from her wheelchair, and the two of them emerged from a private conversation holding hands, to be greeted by squealing children in the street. They were affectionate toward each other and put their faces close together. Mother Teresa clasped her palms together in the Indian gesture signifying both hello and good-bye. The princess got into her silver car, and that was the end of their first private visit, and unfortunately for the world, their last.

Princess Diana was born a lady, lived as a princess and died a legend

By Michelle B.

Diana, Princess of Wales, did not have the happiest childhood. Diana was born in 1961. Her parents went through a messy divorce. Because of the family's aristocratic connections, the tabloids devoured the scandal and photographers harassed Diana and her family. When visiting her father, servants would take care of her and her brother and two sisters. They even ate their meals with a nanny, not with a parent. Although Diana had a swimming pool, tennis court and anything that her heart desired, she was extremely unhappy.

Before she became the "People’s Princess" Diana lived an ordinary life. She had her own apartment and was a part-time nanny, a house cleaner, and a kindergarten helper. Working with children aged six was her last normal job before becoming the Princess of Wales. She could walk down the street and not worry about seeing herself on the front page of the next day’s newspapers. But then she met Charles and her life changed forever.

Early in 1981, Queen Elizabeth pushed her eldest son and heir to the throne, Charles, to either marry Diana or end the relationship. Charles proposed to Diana over a candlelight dinner at Buckingham Palace. When she subsequently showed-off her engagement ring - an oval sapphire surrounded by 14 diamonds - to photographers, she said, "with Prince Charles beside me I cannot go wrong." On July 29, 1981, she took the dreams away from many young women by marrying one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. The bride arrived at St. Paul’s Cathedral in a glass coach. She wore a dress made out of 40 yards of silk taffeta and 100 yards of crinoline. Her walk down the aisle took three and a half minutes and her train measured 25 feet. Over 750 million people around the world watched the wedding, which was truly one to remember. Years later Diana said that "by the eve of the wedding, I had begun to have doubts." "Still, I believed that Charles would love me forever."

Diana began her relationship with Prince Charles when she was twenty. Charles was 12 years older, and glued to his job, not Diana. Diana was full of hope and romance. She saw Charles as a real-life Prince Charming. Charles, however, had been involved before his marriage with Camillia Parker Bowles, and subsequently continued that relationship. Diana knew of their relationship, and suffered from both depression and bulimia after her marriage. When she was pregnant with William, she was so depressed that she threw herself down the stairs. In 1995, the couple divorced. Diana received 26.5 million dollars. She reportedly became even closer to her two sons William (15) and Harry (13). She also fell in love with Dodi Al Fayed.

Then suddenly the story ended with a crash, and the world was left in shock. Diana, 36, died along with her new love, Al Fayed. Her sons now have to grow up without the love and support of their mother, and under the rather daunting supervision of the Royal Family. The world will never see her again, but we will cherish the memories forever.

The life of Mother Teresa remembered

By Elizabeth F.

"If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive." Who said this? Mother Teresa. Who is Mother Teresa? A woman who fed the hungry, clothed the poor and nursed the sick.

Mother Teresa was not always Mother Teresa. She was Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhui. She was born on August 26, 1910, and baptized August 27 in what is now Macedonia. She thought her baptism was her true birthday.

Agnes loved to be in church, read, write, pray, and sing. At 18 she joined the Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto in Ireland. She trained at the motherhouse of the Loreto Sisters, in Dublin, and in 1931 she chose the name of Sister Teresa after Saint Therese. God’s message came to her loud and clear. She had to leave the convent and help the poor. In 1937 Mother Teresa took her final vows in Darjeeling. She taught for 20 years at Saint Mary’s High School in Calcutta, India. On September 10, 1946, Mother Teresa received another call from God, this time to serve the poorest of the poor. Once, Sister Teresa said "I want to live on rice and salt, like the poor." The Superior answered that this would keep her from following her call--the kind of life she envisioned demanded strength and good health. Mother Teresa founded the religious order, Missionaries of Charity. In 1950 she began to care for the lepers. In 1952 Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity began the work for which they have been noted ever since. 1971 Pope Paul VI honored Mother Teresa by awarding her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize.

The following year, the government of India presented her with the Jawharla Nehru Award for International Understanding. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize. In spite of her age she still taught all over the world. In the 1992 elections of a new Superior general, she was prepared to hand over the responsibility, but she was reelected. In 1996 her health started to fail, and on March 13, 1997, the assembly of sisters elected Sister Nirmala to continue in Mother Teresa’s place. On September 5, 1997, Mother Teresa died at the age of 87. Mother Teresa served and helped a lot of poor, hungry, and sick people.

In closing let me end with one of her famous quotations. "We have been created to love and be loved."

A Final Farewell To England's Rose

By Amber S.

August 30, 1997 was a night like any other in Paris, France, except a princess and her companion would forever lock themselves in our memories. Princess Diana, her companion Emad "Dodi" Fayed, a chauffeur, and a body guard left the Ritz in Paris at a little past midnight. The driver, who was later found to be intoxicated, was pursued by several free-lance photographers, or paparazzi, on motorcycles. The speeding Mercedes crashed inside of a tunnel. Both Fayed and the chauffeur were killed instantly, but the princess and bodyguard survived the initial impact. Despite all the efforts of the Paris doctors, however, Diana, Princess of Wales died as a result of her overwhelming injuries at around 4:00 A.M. Paris time.

For nearly a week the world mourned. Thousands of bouquets and cards were left at Kensington Palace, Diana's home, and at British Embassies and Consulates around the world. On Saturday, September 6, the three mile funeral procession began at 9:00 A.M. Diana's two young sons, William, 15, and Harry, now 13, marched with heads bowed as they followed their mother's coffin from the palace to Westminster Abbey. The princess's coffin was adorned with the Royal standard, white roses and lilies, and a small card addressed to "Mummy." Thousands of people stood to watch the solemn parade, the rows at times were forty people deep. They wept silently as they watched their princess's final journey down this road.

At the funeral, the ninth Earl Spencer, Diana's younger brother, gave an emotional and heartfelt speech chastising the paparazzi and stating, "I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all that we can to continue the imaginative and loving way you were steering these two exceptional young men [her sons], so that their souls are not immersed in duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned." At the end of the ceremony, Elton John sang "Candle in the Wind" with altered lyrics to suit Princess Di. Diana's body was laid to rest on a small island in a tiny lake at Althorp Park, the Spencer estate. Only her former husband, Charles, Prince of Wales, her sons and a few close relatives were on hand.

Mother Teresa completes her final journey

By Kristin S.

Mother Teresa’s journey ended when she was laid to rest at a state funeral on Saturday, September 13, 1997, in Calcutta, India. Before the funeral, her body lay in state at St. Thomas’s Church in Calcutta, where thousands of people paid their respects after waiting in a line up to a mile long. State funerals are usually reserved for presidents and prime ministers.

Mother Teresa had a justly deserved international reputation as the Roman Catholic nun who helped the poorest of the poor. Her body was carried to her grave in the same carriage used by India’s past leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. World leaders who paid their respects to Mother Teresa included the Indian President and Prime Minister, the President of France, First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. Pope John Paul II’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano, represented the Holy Father. Cardinal Sodano suggested recently that Mother Teresa might be put on a "faster track" toward sainthood because the Pope believed her life was so exemplary.