I was not raised to admire the queen, but Queen Elizabeth inspired me nonetheless.

When I started writing this column, I was in what my mother, a hospice home care worker, used to call the waiting time, when the news looks grim, but hope has yet to make its exit.

Queen Elizabeth’s family was gathering at Balmoral Castle, her summer home in Scotland, where doctors were “concerned for Her Majesty’s health.” In Britain, this is gravest of language when it comes to news about the queen.

More:Cartoons: Farewell to Queen Elizabeth II

I first heard the news about 10 a.m. ET. Immediately I turned to the live broadcast of BBC News, which had suspended all other coverage and begun the public vigil. Grim-faced anchors were dressed in black suits and ties as they delivered updates in somber voices. So different from how we do things on TV here in the United States, I couldn’t help but notice.

Queen Elizabeth was dying. I reached out to my editor: Is there a place, I wondered, to write about what it has meant to be a woman in America inspired by a woman in England called the queen? She was privileged and flawed, but she excelled in a role she never wanted, and made it uniquely her brand of woman’s work.

A young Queen Elizabeth inspired a young me

I was not raised to admire the queen. We were a working-class, union family, steeped in the mantra of our times: The man of the house should be the king of his castle. The king of our home reviled Queen Elizabeth’s gilded life, and my mother’s Irish roots offered further complications. “The Kennedys are our royalty,” my father would say, pointing to the framed photo of the president.

In my early 20s, though, it hit me that Elizabeth was just 25 when her father died at a young age, and she immediately inherited his duties and his life. When I was 25, I was rudderless, a journalism school graduate working as a receptionist and bookkeeper for a temporary job service. At the same age, Queen Elizabeth had suddenly become the most famous woman in the world, with the rest of her life predetermined.

Elizabeth was my father's 4th monarch: Now, Britain is now facing the unthinkable

More on British royalty: Prince Philip was the most interesting royal

I could suddenly see my freedom – and her captivity. Yes, she lived a life full of servants and people walking backward when exiting her company. But she loved horses and corgis, and being outdoors in wellies and hunting gear, driving her own truck. She had grown up thinking she would become a wife and mother happily living in the countrywhile her father sat on the throne. Instead, with his death,her every public moment would be scrutinized and criticized for all the days of her life.

When she was 18, she joined the women’s branch of the British Army to serve her country as a mechanic during World War II. My favorite photo of her during that time shows her wearing pants and a tie and leaning against the front of a vehicle, her left foot poised gracefully in front of her right.

She was widely reported to be a hard worker, privately and, most notably, in public, averaging several hundred events a year.

“I have to be seen to be believed,” she famously said, and over the decades she embraced that part of her job.

She became known for her colorful outfits, which made it easy to see her from a distance, and in a crowd. It takes a level of confidence for a woman to draw attention to herself in this way. It is a self-assurance I do not possess, still.

You would have to be about 100 years old to remember a time when Elizabeth was not queen of England. She was impossible to ignore. She held her own with 15 prime ministers, starting with Winston Churchill. Several of them were born after she became queen. Americans should note that she also came to know a total of 13 of the past 14 U.S. presidents.

She tried to live up to impossible expectations

There is much to criticize about this enduring monarchy, including its cruelties. I would never deny this, but today I will not grind that stone. Queen Elizabeth kept her internal life out of public view in this era of selfies and public confessionals, and while I do not aspire to her level of secrecy, I did find her resolve at times inspiring. When you are stoic in the face of crises, you can become a touchstone for those who need the steadying. What I have also come to understand is that a strong woman inspires other women to be strong.

She was often mocked for her unflappable demeanor of dignity and grace, but it’s a curious criticism, considering how dignity and pride are lifelong aspirations of most of us. Perhaps envy drove the ridicule. Most humans stumble, often badly and in plain sight. Perhaps she embodied what we perceived as unattainable. This rarely brings out the best in us.

We will remember where we were when we heard the news of her passing. Love her, hate her or find her irrelevant, you will be able to recite the time and place when you learned that Queen Elizabeth had died. I am not British, and so I do not feel her death as a wound to our national identity. As a woman in America, though, I feel deeply the loss of a woman who, every day of her life, tried to live up to the impossible expectations of others.

Prince William, Michael Bloomberg: We're in a race to save Earth from climate change

I was raised by my devout mother to understand that no matter the heights of celebrity or notoriety, death is a solo journey that returns us to who we were in the beginning. No job titles. No honorifics. No curtsies or bows.

Mine is a sincere and simple prayer.

Rest.

More from Connie Schultz:

Dropping a kid at college? Seek out the home-away-from-home mom before you go.

A birthday wish for us all: Laugh, sing and live large regardless of the years

Fear is fuel, and each of us must decide which part of our character it will feed

USA TODAY columnist Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winner whose novel, “The Daughters of Erietown,” is a New York Times bestseller. You can reach her at CSchultz@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @ConnieSchultz 

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Queen Elizabeth gave me an example of strength and dignity