The priceless gift my best friend bequeathed me

That gift is the experiential proof that an ordinary man, like you Ken, could routinely do something that is extraordinary – to live a life of unconditional loving.

I could not think of anything more important, nobler, and more beautiful, yet more difficult, than a life lived for unconditional loving, as you did Ken.

This is wonderful news to me – an inestimable gift.

At the same time it is also very challenging.

For you, having lived till your death as an unconditional lover, has taken away my last excuse for avoiding genuinely attempting to live unconditional loving as the purpose my life.

Until your death now at 81, I could just vex lyrical about unconditional loving but keep postponing really going for it, having put it into the 'too hard basket.'

I held on to my conviction that though living a life of unconditional love is the noblest of all goals I could have, I could only approximate but never live it fully, because 'this was humanly impossible for an ordinary person.'

Even mothers at their best – I was trying to console myself – could perhaps love only their own children unconditionally.

You proved me wrong Ken.

This proof stings me the more, because having been your soul-mate and best friend for a whopping 58 years, I could not but witness personally that you, an ordinary man, actually succeeded in living a life of unconditional loving all this time.

Till now I have lived according to Herman Hesse's joke that –

'Oh, I would love to become a saint… but not yet.'