Queen Sofia is unwell. Following the funeral of her sister Irene in Greece, where we saw her utterly heartbroken and wiping away her tears, the Queen Emeritus remains devastated. She now has a date to resume her official duties, but that doesn’t mean she’s fully recovered.
Pilar Eyre, a royalty expert with close knowledge of the family’s inner workings, explains it clearly.
Queen Sofia is not recovering, and she is experiencing losses and absences. She lives in the past. She prays a lot. She relies on her German cousins, who call her secretly, and her Greek nephews as well. She speaks to the dead. This is far from the reports that attempted to paint a picture of a swift recovery.
Eyre adds that if the image of a recovered Sophia of Greece, focused on her work, were true, “it would seem somewhat frivolous.” It’s as if he’s only interested in appearing and not being taken advantage of.
But that’s not it. “The current image is of a grieving Sofia,” she says. And it makes sense. She lost her cousin Tatiana and her sister Irene in a very short time, the two people who had always been by her side since her youth.
Now without her siblings Irene and Constantino, Sofia is the last of the dynasty. These are incredibly hard blows for anyone, and she’s 87 years old.
Queen Sofia’s loneliness has always been evident. Her husband, Juan Carlos, with whom she has not had a relationship for decades, lives in Abu Dhabi. Her favorite son, Felipe, is devoted to his family and the institution. And her daughters, Elena and Cristina, have never had a close relationship with her.
Sofia has lived with Irene since she decided to settle in Spain. She was her friend, her confidant, the one person who never let her down. Now, without Irene, she is broken. The death of her brother Constantino was already a hard blow, but this deepened the pain even more.
At Irene’s funeral, we saw Leonor and Sofia for the first time at an event like this. The granddaughters came to say goodbye to their great-aunt in both Madrid and Greece. Sofia hugged them at various points. Everyone felt her pain as if it were their own.
Queen Sofia will make her first public appearance since the death of Irene of Greece on Tuesday, February 10, when she visits the Food Bank in Bizkaia. All eyes will be on her as she returns to work for the first time since her sister’s passing.