Meghan is celebrating Father’s Day by talking about her new children’s book and some unique moments she and her husband Prince Harry have had.
On Sunday, Meghan Markle appeared on NPR Weekend Edition to discuss her new book, The Bench, which was inspired by a poem she wrote for Prince Harry for Father’s Day 2019, only weeks after the couple welcomed their first child, Archie.
During the interview, the Duchess of Sussex shared that the poem was only part of how she celebrated the special occasion. That year, she also got him a bench.
“As most of us do, you go, what am I going to get them as a gift?” the Duchess of Sussex remarked during the interview, which was taped just before she gave birth to her daughter Lilibet Diana on June 4, a name that pays homage to Queen Elizabet-h and Princess Diana.
“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,” she added.
On the back of the bench is a plaque, on which the Duchess’ poem appears. “This is your bench,” the poem reads, “Where life will begin/ For you and our son/ Our baby, our kin.”
The Duchess of Sussex went on to describe The Bench as a “love story.”
“I often find, and especially in this past year, I think so many of us realized how much happens in the quiet,” she said. “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,” she added, going on to note that it was also important to her to make sure the book was as inclusive as possible.
“Growing up, I remember so much how it felt to not see yourself represented,” she said. “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.”
Later in the interview she added, “I really hope that people can see this as a love story that transcends the story of my family.”
The Duchess revealed that a poem she wrote to Harry after their son was the inspiration for the book.
She posted a new message on her and Prince Harry’s Archewell Foundation website on Wednesday, in response to the news that The Bench had achieved No. 1 on The New York Times’ best-seller list. noting that the story “began as a love letter to my husband and son, [and] I’m encouraged to see that its universal themes of love, representation and inclusivity are resonating with communities everywhere,” she said.
“In many ways, pursuing a more compassionate and equitable world begins with these core values,” she added.
The Duchess of Sussex even included their newborn daughter in the book, which features Harry and Archie, who is two years old.
The final artwork of the book looks to be based on the Harry and Meghan’s lives in California, with Harry sitting on a bench with Archie feeding hens. Meghan is represented by a woman in a sun hat standing in a garden with baby Lili in a sling!
This is not the first book that the Duchess of Sussex has been involved in to become a best seller. Together: Our Community Cookbook, for which Duchess Meghan wrote the foreword to in 2018, also reached the top of the nonfiction charts on Amazon and The Bookseller.