The "20-something" responses to the death of Princess Diana have been a major surprise. Polls consistently show young people in this age group are least interested in preserving royalty, yet -- as reactions from writers under the age of 25 make clear -- some aspects of her life struck a particular resonance for them. Andrea Jones is an editor at YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about young people produced by Pacific News Service.

On the last evening of a family gathering in Las Vegas, as my boyfriend and I waited for my sister Jade and her boyfriend to join us, he pressed the power button on the television set -- and the room filled with news of Princess Diana's death.

My reaction was one of deep shock, but it soon subsided. The news was sad, but I was not a fan of Di, and the plane for home left in only two hours. Still, we watched the news while waiting.

When I heard her knock, I ran to tell Jade the news -- she has made pop icons a part of her life, to an unhealthy extent, I feel. She watches "E! Entertainment Television" almost ceaselessly.

But when I met her at the door, she turned her face away, placed her year-old daughter in my arms, and went straight into the bathroom. From the look on her boyfriend's face, I assumed there had been a big fight.

Then my sister began to sob loudly and I rushed in, prepared to hear her tell me what a fool her boyfriend was.

But when I asked what had happened, she removed her fingers from her eyes, shook her head, and murmured only "Oh, Princess Di."

I was sure I had heard her wrong. I didn't know she had any feelings for Di. Our grandmother once told us that if her mother had not canceled her engagement to an African despot visiting Ohio, we would have been African princesses. Maybe my sister took the story to heart, and found some kinship with the Princess of Wales -- she was only five years older than Jade.

The political implications of a displaced African woman crying over the death of an imperial royal seemed twisted, but I as we talked I realized it was possible that she felt they had something in common -- certainly, alienation is something my sister could relate to in others.

At 16, my sister watched Diana's royal wedding with all the hope any teenage girl may have of finding fairy tale happiness in her own life. Now 30, my sister -- unmarried, with two kids, and living on public assistance -- had seen both her own and Diana's dreams perish. She had seen Diana as battered and beaten by life as she was. The scandal with the royal family made Diana real, and her humanitarian efforts had touched my sister. Jade felt a bright light had been ripped away from the great causes in the world.

It was not clear just how much of her concern was based on Diana's celebrity, but when Jade proclaimed her desire to attend Di's funeral -- when we both knew that her rent was due in a matter of days -- the look on my face made hers curl up into a smile. Only then could I exhale, knowing that Jade hadn't lost it after all.

I was able to sympathize with Jade -- I myself had just cried at my stepsister's Vegas wedding even though we hadn't said more than a dozen words to one another in the past ten years.

Being cut off from the fantasy without warning overwhelmed Jade, I think, as it did so many others. Every moment that Diana had been hounded made her that much more a symbol -- many who could not find answers in her eyes looked for them in paparazzi shots of cellulite formations in her thighs, still with little success.

Diana has finally become more tangible in death than in life. It took French surgeons two hours of nursing her exhausted heart to realize that Diana was really only human after all. Maybe this explains the title she has acquired only after death -- "The People's Princess."