01/11/2024
Today we said goodbye to Paulie.
Most people know of Paul as the person who's larger than life, louder than most wildlife, and for his very public career, whether that was in the theatre, working for other companies or running his own businesses, especially in the end with a podcast and his public speaking career.
Throughout his life Paul has achieved many great things that we all know about (you're welcome…!) from on stage to working behind the scenes, to doing great things in business most recently publishing is book and also being a runner up for a British podcast award, amongst many other things.
The number of times I’ve heard someone who hasn't seen him in a while say they didn’t get a chance to see him but they're feeling the sorrow. I thought about this a lot, and I have come to realise that this is because that when your light shines as strongly as Pauls did, you don't have to be in the same room as him to feel the glow, because that light was so abundant that anywhere outside of the room, anywhere in the world, his light would shine through those windows and you could FEEL it shining and feel the warmth of all the love that he gave everybody.
I know it's very difficult for everybody now that this light has gone out and there's a darkness left behind. But we all shine a little bit brighter because of him. And while at the moment its raw and it feels right to be sad, Paulie would want us to be happy, moving on and living our lives to the best of his memory.
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I might say to people. The mix of knowing how the devastation of his passing will feel and the fact that so many of us knew him through the wedding industry, it seemed obvious to quote the words of another splendid bu**er: W.H. Auden, a la Four Weddings and a funeral. But the more I thought about it, Paulie would never want us to stop All the Clocks.
Instead, I feel these words by Jack London are much more fitting for how Paulie lived his life, and how he would want us all to live our lives.
"The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."
Here's to Paulie