Harry was only 12 when he lost Diana.
He recalls how, within five days of Diana's death, thousands of people had gathered outside Kensington Palace to lay flowers.
For a child who had just lost his mother, it was a confusing position to be in.
The world was mourning Diana, while Harry was still trying to understand what her death meant for him.
“I didn’t cry when I was told my mum died, only at her burial, and then not again for nearly two decades,” he says.
Harry was only 12 when he lost Diana. At an age when most children turn to their parents for comfort and reassurance, he had to come to terms with a tragedy that played out in front of the world.
He recalls how, within five days of Diana's death, thousands of people had gathered outside Kensington Palace to lay flowers. Harry and his older brother, Prince William, went out to meet them. But the experience left him with complicated feelings about his own grief.
“I felt as though my brother and I were intermediaries for these people’s grief towards our mother, and they were showing more emotion than we could,” he says.
The sight of strangers crying for someone they had never met made him question his own reaction. He remembers shaking hundreds of hands, many still wet with tears, and feeling almost guilty that he couldn't show the same emotion.
For a child who had just lost his mother, it was a confusing position to be in. The world was mourning Diana, while Harry was still trying to understand what her death meant for him.
He admits that even at her burial, part of him struggled to accept what had happened. He held on to the belief that Diana would return one day, imagining that she had somehow staged her own disappearance to escape the pressures that had made her life difficult. Perhaps, he thought, she would come back in disguise and take him and William away.
It was a child's desperate attempt to make sense of something that felt impossible to accept.
And when he finally cried at her burial, the tears brought an unexpected sense of relief. Yet he would spend years pushing those feelings aside, believing that he had to carry on without letting himself fall apart.
“I didn’t cry when I was told my mum died, only at her burial, and then not again for nearly two decades,” he says. “I was convinced that was strength, but it wasn’t.”
(AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
