Meghan Markle’s mom has reportedly quit her job at a Los Angeles mental health clinic just days before the royal wedding.
Doria Ragland, Markle’s mom, decided at last to pursue her lifelong dream of having her own practice just days before her daughter will wed Prince Harry and become a part of the British Royal Family. According to a report by Us Weekly, she hopes to work on her own terms from now on, focusing particularly on elderly patients.
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“Doria [Ragland] is no longer working at the mental health clinic… It was Doria’s decision to leave,” a source said. “She has talked about starting her own private practice, focusing on working with elderly patients.”
Ragland, 61, also teaches yoga. Her daughter has lavished compliments on her over the years. Last August, she wrote an essay for Glamour titled “The 10 Women Who Have Changed My Life,” and dedicated a large portion of it to her mother.
“My mom’s a yoga instructor, but she does social work, as well, and she works specifically with the geriatric community,” Markle wrote. “For me to watch this level of life-long sensitivity to nurturing and caregiving, but at the same time my mom has always been a free spirit. She’s got dread locks and a nose ring. She just ran the LA Marathon. We can just have so much fun together, and yet, I’ll still find so much solace in her support. That duality coexists the same way it would in a best friend.”
The developments in Ragland’s life are nothing compared to those of Markle’s father, Thomas Markle. The 73-year-old underwent heart surgery on Wednesday after a minor heart attack last week. This means that he will have to miss the Royal Wedding due to the lengthy recovery time for his procedure.
“They [doctors] will go in and clear blockage, repair damage and put a stent where it is needed,” he told TMZ.
Markle may be spared from finding out whether he was actually still invited to the wedding thanks to the surgery. He was originally supposed to walk his daughter down the aisle on Saturday. However, last week, he was caught taking contrived paparazzi photos with a journalist. The pictures shows what were supposed to be “candid” shots of Markle getting fitted for a suit and reading a book about British travel to prepare for the trip.
When it was discovered that he posed for the photos, Queen Elizabeth II was reportedly furious. Markle humbly bowed out of the wedding ceremony, though a couple of days later he said he had changed his mind. He hoped to still give away his daughter at the altar. Now, it has become a non-issue.
