Hello everybody. I'm Rosie, Paul's person.

I’m sorry if I struggle to say all that I wish to say. I’m finding words very difficult to catch at the moment. It feels like the world is snowing heavily around me with all these beautiful lexical snowflakes but they just dissolve as soon as I try to grasp them. So to my lovely Paul, I'm sorry I'm unable to have fun with any wondrous word dancing now.

Meeting Paul, falling in love with him and having our beautifully bonkers little family together, has and will continue to be the most cherished experience of my existence. The pain of his loss is almost unbearable, but I would not forgo this pain if it meant having to forgo the love and happiness that has preceded it. 

But what I really want to focus on now and say to Paul, more than anything, is thank you. Thank you for being you and enabling me to be me.

Paul and I have had to contend with a succession of really difficult and upsetting experiences over the last few years, the last 9 months has been particularly hard for us as I’d not been very well. 

These things have tested us both tremendously and, as such, put huge pressure on our relationship. However during this time, although we've definitely both wobbled as individuals, not once, not once, even in the most difficult of shared moments did our relationship ever begin to falter. Quite the contrary, our connection has just get stronger and stronger.

And this is down to Paul, and his absolute determination and somewhat super-human capacity to make sure he always thoroughly explored and completely understood every tiny contextual factor of my experiences, and our joint experiences, so that he could guide us forward together past every spikey obstacle, united on the same path.

He made sure he was always at least one step ahead of any moment of darkness or upset I, or we, might enter. He made sure he understood the stupid tangled labyrinthe of my thoughts and emotions so well, that he would always be there waiting in the deepest chasms of my mind, so that whenever I couldn't help but retreat to them, he would already be there, sitting on a squishy bit of cortical matter smoking a cigarette, smiling, sometimes swearing, but there, ready to hold my hand, pick me up and guide me back to the surface. In so doing he was able, like no one else to dissolve my fears and hold tight to my hope. And they are the most powerful things you can ever do for someone.

Paul's capacity to understand, and desire to do what he could to lessen the difficulties experienced by other people (and animals too) definitely did not stop with me. Paul cared extremely deeply about the inequalities within the human experience and of social and moral injustices. This caused him a lot of upset, frustration and continual existential questioning but he refused to be overwhelmed by his own responses to the unjust workings of the world, rather he strove to focus moment to moment on how he could try and help make things better. He didn't do this to gain a sense of social capital or to feel like he was making his mark on the world, he did it purely because he cared. Even as he was experiencing the symptoms of acute heart failure, his thoughts were with other people, at one point walking 15 minutes back in the direction he'd just come to give a homeless woman £20. So thank you, my love, for being a continual reminder to everyone that other people matter and I promise to do what I can to continue the revolution.

I also want to say thank you to him for being the best Pauly to Bella and the best Pauly to Nico. Bella and Nico know this and always will. Not only was he utterly dedicated to ensuring there was a happy bubbling along of our day to day life, but he also remained forever focused on doing everything possible to help our children live their lives in a way that would allow them to feel safe, secure and content with their place in the world. And Nico can't even walk yet. I promise, my love, to look after them for us.

To say goodbye I'd like to read a poem that was going to be part of our wedding vows. It’s by the Russian Futurist Poet Velimir, Khlebnikov.

Where the Waxwings Used to Dwell

Where the waxwings used to dwell,
Where the pine trees softly swayed,
A flock of airy momentwills
Flew around and flew away.
Where the pine trees softly whooshed
Where the warblewings sang out
A flock of airy momentwills
Flew around and flew about.
In wild and shadowy disarray
Among the ghosts of bygone days,
Wheeled and tintinnabulated.
A flock of airy momentwills
A flock of airy momentwills!

I love you xx