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By Shane Gilreath
In life you have the first string and the second string, just like in sports. Over the weekend, I was reminded perpetually that I am second string in my own family. When you’re second string, you don’t necessarily get a say in what happens, but you’re expected to survive it, deal with it, or clean it up. There are times when that’s okay and you accept it as your lot in life. Then, there are others when you know you’re right and speaking truth and no one hears you, sees you, cares – and it’s a bit more difficult. Those are the moments when you throw up your hands! When you’re experiencing that, it’s sometimes good to seek reflection. For me, there are lives that put things into perspective – maybe lives we wish we’d led.
As I was struggling to unsuccessfully find a place in my own world and many eyes were tuned to Roland Garros, Belmont, and the Epsom Downs, the world quietly lost an indomitable woman – Lady Pamela Hicks, who slipped quietly into the history books last Friday. Aged 97, Lady Pamela lived an extraordinary life by any standard – a genuine witness to history itself, yet she rarely stood at its very center. Maybe she, too, was second string, though you might never have guessed. Rather than a name on the marquee, she occupied a far rarer place, that speck close enough to history to see it unfold firsthand, but far enough removed to observe it with some clarity. That was her life in a nutshell. As the title of her memoir described her, she was truly a “Daughter of Empire,” a phrase that sounds almost foreign to most American ears nearly 250 years after the Revolution.
Affectionately known as “Lady P,” she shared much of her life in recent years through interviews and conversations, podcasts, and writings produced alongside her incredible daughter, India Hicks, herself the goddaughter of King Charles III (and famously a bridesmaid at his wedding to Lady Diana Spencer). Through Lady Pamela’s stories, a new generation gained access to a world that would have otherwise disappeared with her, her life seeing some of the most momentous events in modern British history. She lived through five British monarchs. She was the daughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India and one of the most consequential figures of the twentieth century. Through her parents’ service, she witnessed the closing chapter of the British Raj and encountered towering figures such as Gandhi and Nehru during one of history’s most consequential transitions.
She later traveled the world with Queen Elizabeth II, serving first as a bridesmaid at the future queen’s wedding and later as a lady-in-waiting after Elizabeth’s accession to the throne in 1952. Her life intersected with events and personalities that most of us know only through books, yet what likely strikes me most about Lady Pamela’s death is not her proximity, but the stories. Some stories were written down. Some were recorded. Some were shared over dinners, in drawing rooms, or during long conversations with friends. Ordinarily, when someone of her generation dies, an entire library burns quietly to the ground. Thankfully, India Hicks recognized the value of her mother’s witness and preserved many of them for the world to share.
But inevitably there are questions left unasked and unanswered. Along with the life itself goes a treasury of experiences, observations, and recollections that no historian can recover. There are stories we know existed but will never hear. Details that seemed too ordinary to mention. Conversations that were never recorded. Impressions that never found their way onto a page.
I think often of my own grandparents when reflecting on people like Lady Pamela. Though they lived an ocean away, they shared a common understanding of service and duty. My grandfather often said that if the President or Governor asked you to serve, you served. Lady Pamela expressed much the same sentiment regarding her sovereign. Neither viewed service as an opportunity for personal advancement. It was simply an obligation that came with citizenship, a privilege of circumstance.
As my grandparents grew older, I found myself trying to capture their stories before they were lost. No matter what we might otherwise think, there is an urgency to memory, and maybe that’s the most valuable lesson here – even for a second string.
Lady Pamela Hicks lived a long and remarkable life. A near century is a blessing by any measure, but we are each living archives. We all possess perspectives on events, places, and people that can never be recreated once we are gone.
Perhaps that is worth remembering when life leaves us feeling like second stringers. The sad truth is, most of us will never stand at the center of history. We will not be monarchs, presidents, generals, or household names. Many of us may well live lives we feel are unfulfilled, yet history is not built solely by those whose names appear in headlines. It’s carried by those who witness it, remember it, and pass it along.
Some lives are large. Some are small. Some seem consequential, while others appear to unfold quietly with an asterisk at best, but every life contains stories that vanish when their owner is gone. The value of a life is not measured by how often it takes center stage, but by the unique view it offers of the world. Whether first string or second, each of us leaves behind a chapter that no one else could have written.