Meghan Markle Touches Heart of Age 7 Girl with Spina Bifida with Hope-Filled Words
The British Crown finds itself in a strange place in this postmodern world. Given that the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, the royal family does not have any real political power.
Forget the olden days where your livelihood (or even your life) depended on a monarch’s mood. Today England’s royal family can’t even change traffic laws.
That doesn’t mean that the Crown is bereft of all influence. Yes, Queen Elizabeth and her kin are expected to keep all of the government working together smoothly.
But perhaps the royal family’s greatest work lies with society at large. Just consider the impact Prince Harry and his new bride, the Duchess of Sussex, made at the 2018 WellChild Awards.
According to KPRC, WellChild is a nonprofit that celebrates children facing terrible health challenges and honors those who care for them. It’s also a favorite charity of Prince Harry.
“For the past 40 years, WellChild has been identifying issues and finding long-lasting solutions so that families can care for and support their children at home in the very best possible way,” he said during the award ceremony on September 4. “I have been a patron of the organization for 11 years now, and this year I am especially grateful to be able to share the scope and magnitude of this work with my wife, who joins me here this evening.”
Prince Harry went on to highlight the challenges that caregivers face on a daily basis. Calling their work “exhausting and difficult,” he criticized the British health care system for failing to properly train parents of chronically ill children even while praising the efforts of nonprofits such as WellChild.
However, the highlight of the evening wasn’t the prince’s words. It was meeting the kids that WellChild praised.
People magazine reported that, among others, the nonprofit drew attention to four-year-old Mckenzie Brackley who suffered from acute flaccid paralysis after battling a virus and 13-year-old Poppy Slater who has Crohn’s disease. But the show stealer was seven-year-old Matilda Booth.
Clad in a ruffled white dress, a beaming Matilda hardly let her attitude betray the troubling nature of her health condition. According to Metro, she was born with spina bifida and is paralyzed from the waist down.
The young girl presented Meghan with a bouquet she’d specially selected for the Duchess. Yet Harry thought his wife wasn’t the only one who should get a flower.
He plucked one from the bunch. Then he handed it to smiling Matilda.
“Never stop smiling,” Meghan told the girl. “You’ve got a beautiful smile.”
Not to be left out, Harry hooked his little finger around Matilda’s. They made a pinky promise right then and there.
He also asked Matilda about the stuffed toy she carried with her. It was a plush rendition of a wrinkle-faced pug.
Matilda told the prince that is was named after Simon Cowell, the famously ferocious talent-show judge. A sage Harry replied, “I can see the resemblance.”
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