The duchess
Meghan Markle wanted Prince Harry's first Father's Day to be a special one. In a new interview with NPR Weekend Edition on Sunday, the Duchess of Sussex opened up about her new children's book, The Bench, and the "sentimental" gift she decided on for Harry.
"As most of us do, you go, 'What am I going to get them as a gift?'" Meghan told NPR in her first interview since her and Harry's bombshell sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. "And I thought I just wanted something sentimental and a place for him to have as a bit of a home base with our son."
Thus, it was a bench that Meghan decided to give Harry for his first Father's Day, weeks after they welcomed son Archie in 2019. The couple is now parents of two, as Meghan gave birth to daughter Lili earlier this month.
On the back of Harry's bench is a plaque on which Meghan's poem -- which inspired The Bench -- appears. "This is your bench/ Where life will begin/ For you and our son/ Our baby, our kin," it reads.
In her interview with NPR, Meghan also touched on her children's book, and the importance of having other cultures, religions, ethnicities and more represented among its illustrations.
"Growing up, I remember so much how it felt to not see yourself represented," she explained. "Any child or any family hopefully can open this book and see themselves in it, whether that means glasses or freckled or a different body shape or a different ethnicity or religion."
"I really hope that people can see this as a love story that transcends the story of my family," she later added.
The Bench is a "love story," Meghan expressed.
"I often find, and especially in this past year, I think so many of us realized how much happens in the quiet," she shared. "It was definitely moments like that, watching them from out of the window and watching [my husband] just, you know, rock him to sleep or carry him or, you know ... those lived experiences, from my observation, are the things that I infused in this poem."
"It's really just about growing with someone and having this deep connection and this trust so that, be at good times or bad, you know that you had this person," Meghan said.
See more on Meghan in the video below.
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