ATLANTA — Queen Elizabeth II will be laid to rest Monday, and across the pond and a monument in Atlanta's midtown will serve as a place of mourning.
Standing tall over a busy interchange is part of Atlanta's connection to the British royal family - a gift from overseas.
The Prince of Wales monument was a present to the city from the man Britain now calls King.
Also known as The World Athletes Monument, the statue found squarely at Pershin Point was dedicated to the 1996 Summer Olympics and stands at 55 feet tall.
It is a spot with a history of welcoming those who want to gather and honor that family.
"Queen Elizabeth the Second, they're starting to call her Elizabeth the Great," Rodney Mims Cook Jr. said. "She looms large in global history."
Cook has his own connection to the royal family.
For six years, he served as a trustee for the Prince of Wales Foundation for Architecture, working side-by-side with Britain's new king. It led to an encounter with Queen Elizabeth.
Cook thought it only proper that Atlanta pause to honor the queen and what better place than at the monument gifted by her son.
"She's produced an heir who is now King who will be the greatest of King, the most prepared," Cook said.
It won't be the first time people in Atlanta would honor the life of a royal at the monument.
More than 20 years ago, hundreds gathered at the Prince of Wales monument to honor the life of Princess Diana.
A television broadcast of Princess Diana's funeral helped connect them to the sorrow felt on the other side of the Atlantic.
Come Monday, Cook expects a similar scene.
"It will be somber, it will be befitting of her majesty," Cook said. "It's far and few between when the passing of an individual essentially halts the world."
And once again, a busy spot in midtown will allow Atlanta to join them in grief.