PAUL

I was telling someone about Paul this week, trying not to get choked up. I must have a hundred stories, and it feels right that they’re shared. Grief has to be lived. I can’t lock him away.

I kept it very general. I didn’t mention the mission trip where he woke me up by staring at me six inches away from my face. I didn’t mention the milk he deliberately left by the radiator for a week just to see what it smelled like. But I did talk about his incredible capacity for making you feel like you were the most important person in the room, his world-class public speaking, and his amazing dedication to what he believed was right. He was funny, charming, kind, intelligent, straight-talking and fantastically faithful, and I will miss him for the rest of my life.

It’s an odd season, grief. Everyone seems to handle it differently. Some, two weeks in, seem to have forgotten he died. Others are angry and confused, perhaps with God, perhaps just internally. Hard to blame anyone cycling through the five stages of grief - though of course, those things - denial, bargaining, depression, anger and acceptance - are more like the colours of a painting that’s been left out in the rain. They merge and swirl, they combine and they run. And all of that is okay.

I’ll tell more stories about my friend someday. And I won’t be alone - he was known and loved by hundreds of people, each of whom must have felt as though they too were the most important person in the room when they were with him. My counsellor mentioned that it was just possible that I’d helped shape him into that person, just as he undoubtedly shaped me, over the twenty years of our friendship. It’s a nice thought. I liked it. And nice thoughts are very welcome at the moment.