𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐲𝐛𝐞𝐞 ∗ 𝐁𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐨𝐧

.01

𝙿𝚊𝚙𝚊

You were terribly principled. You taught all of us life maxims that have shaped us in both good and bad ways. You taught us to be grateful and appreciative of life, to pursue opportunity with vigor and relish luck when it passed by our front doors. You taught us that 50% of luck is our own making, good fortune doesn't just exit the sky and land on one's lap. You taught us to treat others the way we wish to be treated, to love and treat them with respect, to care for our elders, to be polite, kind, thoughtful and to be generous to others. And generosity was the backbone of your being - you were enormously generous with your love and generous with your care and interest in what is important to others. It was this that gave you a certain way of making even a stranger feel like the most special person in a room. I don't think we could count the number of life's passers by that you charmed with your cheeky smile, curious good-intent and ferocious wit. You would never start a conversation by talking about yourself, it was always how are you? You gave everybody your unadulterated time, and you just let us all talk to our hearts content about whatever we wanted, listening intently and taking an interest. You were observant but not judgmental, it didn't matter who you were talking to, where they came from, you would talk to anybody at all. And it was in your eyes where we could all discover your innocent joy in being selfless – the sparkle told of your love of giving. Watching people's fondness of you over the years has over and over again reinforced their love of this astounding human quality of yours that we all loved you for so much.

Your principles were on occasion vulnerable to weakness. You could be so overly principled that I know you lost relationships along the road in the name of your own ideology. Your heart and mind adhered to such stringency when it came to the subject matter of love - there was no grey matter for you, just black and white. And this was your greatest and most special quality in my eyes. It was also your most frustrating flaw. You loved deeply, to the core, and I have often wondered over the years, is it this depth of soul that has moved your brain to suffer such catastrophe because you just couldn't handle pain and stress? When you were hurt it was profoundly and I have often used the analogy of how you get the scissors out to remove a person from your life because you couldn't bear to deal with whatever disease that you perceived had beset the relationship. Wrong or right this is who you were. And I guess I have chosen over the years to view that as a positive thing rather than a negative one, even if it did indeed represent a personality failing. Most certainly it was one of the hallmarks of your fallibility and to me this was the antithesis of why I love you so dearly. Despite appearances you were fragile and vulnerable, hugely emotional and deep. I loved you for this, very very much.

You taught us all what love means from your worldy view. That to love truly, one needs to start with liking someone a great deal. Liking who they are, what they believe in and stand for. The greatest compliment anyone could receive from you was to be told that you liked them very much indeed. In the world according to you, love could be impulsive, too emotional and wreckless, and you would describe it as such, as though these were whimsical emotions that never afflicted your soul. This used to make me smile, as you were one of the most passionate, impulsive and emotional people I've ever come across. But I understand your sentiment Papa, that for love to weather and withstand the storms of time and human fickledom it must be underlined by a strong like and respect.

But I am grateful that you taught me this lesson, for it has stood me well in choosing the person I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with – I love him enormously.

It is your strength of character that I will give to our little girl as she grows up — once we conceived a child — She will know and love her grandfather through loving herself because she will have great inner strength. She will give enormously to others and she will be loved greatly for what she stands for and believes in. She will make Benedict and I proud I know for a million reasons, so many of them will be because of you. Yes, the world will like her hugely, I know it already.

You told me once upon a time that I love too hard. Well my Papa doesn't it take one to know one? I love you so so very much.

The sense of loss is at certain moments, totally overwhelming. The desire to hold your face and to tell you just one more time that I like you so very much is a constant ache. But it's okay Papa, the pain is temporary I know - I don't mind loving too hard when it meant that I was loved too hard by you.

Love always,

Honeybee.