Joel Julien

An­isha Ram­per­sad hoped to meet Queen Eliz­a­beth II.

So much so that in 2018 at the age of 9, An­isha put pen to pa­per and wrote to the Queen telling her this.

Af­ter Queen Eliz­a­beth II replied to the let­ter and the British High Com­mis­sion con­tact­ed her fam­i­ly, to An­isha, it seemed that her dream would come through.

Then the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic hit.

And now with the pass­ing of Queen Eliz­a­beth II yes­ter­day at the age of 96, there is no chance of that hap­pen­ing.

But An­isha is just hap­py to have been able to tell the Queen how she felt about her, even though it may not have been in per­son.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia by phone yes­ter­day, An­isha said she was "shocked and sad" to hear of the monarch's pass­ing.

An­isha's ad­mi­ra­tion of the Queen caused her to write a let­ter to the monarch and with her re­sponse, An­isha said it grew.

"I am writ­ing this let­ter be­cause of my ad­mi­ra­tion for you. You are a true role mod­el of how a la­dy should con­duct her­self. You are beau­ti­ful," An­isha wrote.

An­isha asked the Queen how it felt to live in a re­al palace.

"I re­al­ly wish to meet you in per­son. My pas­sion is to help peo­ple and an­i­mals. My heart is filled with love just like yours. One of my dreams is to vis­it Buck­ing­ham Palace and meet you in per­son. I hope one day my dreams will be­come re­al­i­ty," she wrote.

"Hope to get a re­ply from you, and see you some­day soon," An­isha added.

Two months af­ter­wards, An­isha re­ceived bi­o­graph­i­cal doc­u­ments sent to her about the Queen's life in re­sponse and was told that the Queen had, in fact, read the let­ter.

The re­sponse came from Buck­ing­ham Palace.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, An­isha said she was "re­al­ly shocked" and "very sur­prised" to have re­ceived the cor­re­spon­dence.