Prince William said he found it extremely difficult to focus on school and normal life as he opened up about his childhood grief.
The Prince of Wales, 42, this week paid a visit to Child Bereavement UK — a children’s bereavement charity in Widnes, England, of which he is a patron.
The future king spoke about losing his mother, the late Princess Diana, at the young age of 15. She died in a car crash in August 1997 at the age of 36 while fleeing photographers in Paris.
“Sometimes the hardest thing about grief is finding the words for how you actually feel,” William said, according to the Daily Mail.
“It’s crucial for those first few years, particularly, [that] you have support like this… It’s got you in your practice, how to help yourself.”
“The mind gets focused on one thing, doesn’t it? It’s very difficult to do school and normal life,” he went on.
William became patron of the children’s charity — founded by his late mother’s friend Julia Samuel — in 2009. His late mother previously served as patron up until her untimely death.
“What my mother recognized back then — and what I understand now — is that grief is the most painful experience that any child or parent can endure,” William added.
The charity, which is in its 30th year of service, prides itself in supporting youngsters who are experiencing grief in their lives.
During his visit, William spoke with several teenagers who have leaned on the charity for support in previous years.
“He knows exactly the situation we’ve been in — he’s been in the same situation around our age as well. He really understood,” Rebecca, 17, said of the prince, according to The Times. “He seemed comfortable to be able to speak to us about stuff.”
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Daniel said the future king “was quite down to earth.”
“The charity thrives on fundraising and donations. It can’t offer support without them. You need people like the prince to raise awareness of what they do,” he added.
Last year, William’s estranged brother, Prince Harry, opened up about losing their mother.
Recalling the tragedy, Harry, who was 12 years old at the time, said “things become easier” when children can talk about grief.
The Duke of Sussex, 40, stressed the importance of letting children speak freely about their emotions.
“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 realizing if I do talk about it, and I’m celebrating their life, then actually, things become easier as opposed to this, ‘I am just not going to talk about it and that’s best form of coping,’ when in fact it’s not,’” he said.
“It can be for a period of time. If you suppress this for too long, you cannot suppress it for ever, it is not sustainable and it will eat away at you inside.”
