Paul Rees - Civil Celebrant

06/05/2026

😔💜💜💜

06/05/2026

So true… 💔💜

The size of your grief is the exact size of what you lost.
It isn’t drama. It isn’t weakness. It isn’t “still not over it.”

It is love, shattered. It is the life that should still be here.
Around this table, no one gets to make your grief smaller.

You and your grief are welcome here, exactly as you are. 💔

06/05/2026

💔💜💔💜

There are things I rehearse in my mind,
conversations that never quite happen,
words I carry around
like they’re waiting for the right moment.

I imagine you sitting beside me,
listening the way you always did,
without rushing me through
the parts I struggle to say.

I would tell you everything,
how the days feel longer now,
how even simple moments
carry a quiet weight I can’t ignore.

I would tell you I still need you,
in ways I didn’t understand before,
in the spaces where life feels uncertain
and I don’t know which way to turn.

But instead, I speak into silence,
into rooms that hold only echoes,
and I sit with the ache
of words that have nowhere to land.

Missing you isn’t just memory,
it’s the absence of being understood
in the exact way
only you ever could.

So I hold it all inside,
this need, this quiet longing,
wishing just once more
you were here to hear me.

— Angels Are Near

05/05/2026

He speaks so eloquently about his grief. 💜

27/04/2026

😔💜

The water barely moves,
holding the stillness like a quiet promise.
A bird stands alone in the shallows,
watching something I can’t see.

The boat drifts just enough to remind me
that time is still passing somewhere.
But here, in this moment,
everything feels paused between days.

Missing you isn’t sudden anymore.
It doesn’t arrive with sharp edges.
It settles in, familiar and steady,
like something I’ve come to expect.

Yesterday felt like this.
Today carries the same weight.
And I know tomorrow will arrive
with that same quiet presence beside me.

It’s not overwhelming in one moment—
it’s constant across all of them.
A thread that runs through everything,
tying each day gently to the next.

Even the sky seems to understand,
soft and open without urgency.
There’s no rush to move past it,
no need to force it away.

So I stand in it as it comes,
letting each day hold its place.
Because missing you isn’t something that fades—
it’s something that stays, quietly.

And somehow, I’ve learned to live with that.
— Angels Are Near

27/04/2026

💜💜💜😔

I find myself looking upward
more than I used to
as if the sky might hold
what I can’t reach

There’s something about distance
that makes love feel louder
like it stretches farther
than it ever had to before

I wonder if you feel it
in the quiet of wherever you are
the way it sits with me
day after day

It isn’t always heavy
sometimes it’s just there
like a steady presence
that doesn’t leave

I talk to you without thinking
in passing moments
in things I wish you could see
in things I wish I could say

The wind carries something
I can’t quite name
but I let myself believe
it’s enough

Missing you isn’t dramatic
it’s woven into everything
into ordinary hours
that don’t feel the same

And if there’s a way you can know
anything from here
I hope it reaches you
how much of you remains in me

— Angels Are Near

09/04/2026

💔💜💔💜

The water is still,
but my thoughts are not.

They drift to you
more often than I admit—
to the sound of your voice,
the way you felt close
without even trying.

I hold onto the idea
that this isn’t the end.

That somewhere beyond this silence,
there is another moment waiting—
one where I see you again,
where nothing is missing,
where everything makes sense.

But today…

today is heavier.

Today is the kind of day
where hope feels distant,
and all I can do
is sit with how much
I miss you.

Like this single rose
resting against the water—
holding beauty,
holding memory,
in the middle of something
that doesn’t answer back.

—Angels Are Near

09/04/2026

💜💜💜

There are moments
I replay
over and over again.

Things I said.
Things I didn’t say.
The way I walked away
thinking there would be
more time.

I wish I had known
what that moment really was.

Not just another goodbye—

but the last one.

I would have held on longer.
Said more.
Felt it more deeply.

But no one tells you
when it’s the last time.

So now I carry
that quiet ache—

wishing I had hugged you
just a little tighter
before I let go.

—Tears of Memory

31/03/2026

😔💜💜💜

This flower wasn’t meant to fall like this,
its stem bent into something unnatural,
resting on wood that doesn’t remember
the way your hands once held it upright.

I keep stopping in the middle of small moments,
like pouring coffee or opening a door,
because something in me forgets for a second
and expects you to still be there.

Then it comes back—quiet but sharp—
that space where your voice used to live,
and everything around me feels slightly off,
like a room rearranged without warning.

I thought disbelief would fade with time,
that reality would settle into something firm,
but it hasn’t—not really—
it just keeps returning in waves.

The world continues like it always does,
sunlight slipping through the same windows,
people speaking in the same rhythms,
but I keep pausing inside of it.

That pause has become its own kind of place,
where I stand alone for a moment each day,
holding the truth like something fragile
I’m still learning how to carry.

Even this fallen flower feels like a mirror,
something once alive now resting quietly,
and I find myself staring at it longer
than I know how to explain.

Because it’s not just that you’re gone—
it’s that my mind keeps reaching for you,
like a habit it hasn’t unlearned,
like a story that stopped too soon.

And I’m left here, pausing again,
trying to accept what still feels unreal,
trying to move forward through moments
that keep pulling me back.

—Angels Are Near

21/03/2026

💜💜💜

I stand where the water forgets the shore
where everything feels suspended, unfinished
the sky stretches wide above me
filled with quiet lights I cannot name

I wonder which one holds you
which distant flicker carries your knowing
if you see me standing here
small against all this open space

The surface beneath my feet barely moves
just enough to remind me I’m still here
just enough to mirror the sky
as if I’m caught between two worlds

I speak to you without sound
my thoughts rising like breath in cold air
hoping something of me reaches upward
the way your absence settles down into me

There’s a stillness I’ve grown used to
a kind of quiet that follows me everywhere
even in the middle of everything
I feel like I’m standing alone in this reflection

But I keep looking up anyway
because that’s where you feel closest
in the endless, scattered light
that never quite fades from view

And if you can see me from there
just know I haven’t stopped missing you
not in ways that break me open
but in ways that stay, constant and true

—Angels Are Near

20/03/2026

💔💔💔

If love alone
had the power to rewrite fate,

you would still be here
filling the quiet rooms
with your laughter.

Every memory
every tear
every whispered prayer
would have been enough
to pull you back to life.

But love sometimes
has to learn the hardest truth—

that even the deepest love
cannot stop heaven
from calling someone home.

Still, my heart
will keep loving you
as if you never left.

— Angels Are Near