Around 1.30 pm yes­ter­day, Buck­ing­ham Palace tweet­ed that Queen Eliz­a­beth II had died.

The tweet sim­ply read: “The Queen died peace­ful­ly at Bal­moral this af­ter­noon. The King and The Queen Con­sort will re­main at Bal­moral this evening and will re­turn to Lon­don to­mor­row.”

But those 26 words re­ver­ber­at­ed around the world.

While the news of Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s death was not whol­ly un­ex­pect­ed, it was still some­what of a shock glob­al­ly, since she had been a rock for all of her life­time.

Britain’s longest-serv­ing monarch died at age 96 af­ter sev­en decades of reign.

The Queen’s life spanned longer than in­de­pen­dent T&T.

More im­por­tant­ly, the Queen formed some­what of a bond with this coun­try, hav­ing of­fi­cial­ly vis­it­ed here on three oc­ca­sions.

The first time Queen Eliz­a­beth II touched T&T shores was in Feb­ru­ary 1966, more than three years af­ter the Union Jack was low­ered and the red, white and black T&T Na­tion­al Flag was hoist­ed for the first time in its place.

There are im­ages of the Queen with this coun­try’s first Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, and our then-Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al Sir Solomon Ho­choy.

The Queen was said to have been amazed by a Car­ni­val dis­play put on es­pe­cial­ly for her vis­it then.

“The Queen sees mas’: Re­al thing must be fab­u­lous, she says” was the T&T Guardian head­line for that vis­it.

Some 20 years lat­er, in 1985, the Queen re­turned to our shores as part of a ten-is­land Caribbean tour.

And the last time Queen Eliz­a­beth came here was in 2009, when this coun­try host­ed the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing.

Dur­ing that vis­it, she wore a white evening gown with this coun­try’s na­tion­al birds, the Scar­let Ibis and the Cocrico, as well the Cha­co­nia em­broi­dered on it.

Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s death comes just over one week af­ter this coun­try cel­e­brat­ed our 60th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence.

No mat­ter what we may think of Queen Eliz­a­beth II, her life is in­ter­twined with those of many peo­ple here.

Our ma­jor green spot, the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, the very lo­ca­tion where the promi­nent In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions are con­duct­ed, is named af­ter her. There are sev­er­al oth­er ma­jor pub­lic spaces in her name.

And af­ter 70 years of sit­ting on the throne, Queen Eliz­a­beth II’s ab­sence leaves a void that may not soon be filled.

In­deed, it can eas­i­ly be said that the monar­chy will not be the same af­ter her pass­ing yes­ter­day.

This news­pa­per joins the glob­al vil­lage in cel­e­brat­ing the Queen’s life and pay­ing trib­ute to her longevi­ty.

While her as­cen­sion to the throne was some­what sur­pris­ing af­ter the death of her fa­ther when she was on­ly 25, her son has been the king in train­ing for quite some time.

At age 73, King Charles III comes to the throne.

It is no ex­ag­ger­a­tion to say he has some big shoes to fill.

The Queen is now dead, long live the King.