Prince Harry has opened up about the pain of losing his mother Lady Diana in an emotional video.
The Royal has starred in a new video talking about grief, urging children and young people to talk about their emotions.
Prince Harry who lost his mother at age 12, is a global ambassador for Scotty’s Little Soldiers, which supports youngsters who have lost parents in the military.
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The 39-year-old explained: “It’s so easy as a kid to think or convince yourself….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.”
“But then there’s this realisation of, no, they must want me to be happy.”
“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 realising that if I do talk about it, I’m celebrating their life, then actually, things become easier.”
“As opposed to this ‘I’m just not going to talk about it, and that’s the best form of coping’, when in fact it’s not.”
“It can be for a period of time…you can’t suppress it for ever. It’s not sustainable. And will eat away at you inside.”
“No-one wants to in the position where they are forced to talk about the very thing they don’t want to talk about, especially when every defence mechanism in your mind, nervous system and everything else is saying ‘do not go there.'”
In the video, Prince Harry speaks with founder of Scotty’s Little Soldiers, Nikki Scott who set up the charity after she had to tell her five-year-old son, Kai, that his father, Cpl Lee Scott, had been killed in Afghanistan in 2009.
Nikki also had a seven-month-old daughter, Brooke, at the time.
Expressing his admiration for her work, Prince Harry remarked: “What you’ve done is incredible.”
“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.”
