Paul Griffiths

I heard that my old friend Paul Griffiths died yesterday.

 

I think that Paul was one of a handful of emotionally literate men that I have met in my life.

We met when we were both working for The Children’s Society.  He was an Area Manager and I was a Project Manager and we ended up talking in the bar one evening after an event.  He did have an ego – of course he had an ego – but he was one of those men who got you to talk about yourself and I was ripe for a bit of internal exploration on my approach to the world.

 

Our friendship, which went on for a long time, was focused on work, our view of community development and how we were trying to develop as human beings.  He had regretfully come out of his first marriage and had declared celibacy and I needed someone to explore my emotions with.  Tied in with that we were mates and did things together.  I saw loads of theatre with him, tried opera, put the world to rights in a favourite restaurant in Woburn, he babysat for us, took J2 to football, showed J1 a metrosexual alternative to his dad and developed my management potential in leaps and bounds.

He was my plus one when I faced problems at Tower Hamlets Housing Action Trust and spoke for me when I could not speak for myself.  He was extremely articulate.

In the end I lost him when FH left and I was not available for marriage.  He went off and had a very happy marriage with someone else and travelled the world.  I am so glad about that now.

 

I saw him less than a couple of months ago when he knew he was dying.  There was no unfinished business between us, but it was good to reiterate the value of his input in my life.

 

The weirdest thing happened yesterday.  Paul was a great lover of birds and supported the RSPB.

 

I was standing by the kitchen window and a bird very like the one in the picture kept hopping from a nearby shrub and tapping on the window.  Backwards and forwards it came and went – about 10 times.  I stopped to look at it and became mindful that there was no food – I never distributed food at that spot and it seemed so extraordinarily intentional and human.  I remember thinking – what does this mean?  It is too extra-ordinary and I actually thought ‘has Paul passed over?  Has he just come back for one last goodbye?’

https://hazeldurbridge.com/cynical/

 

 

Today I got the phone call.  He had died at the same approximate time.