What is a smile or a laugh? They are liberating feelings of happiness which engulf us. Smiles and laughter multiply into more smiles and more laughter and add something magical to love and life. When a man like Jonathan Chetcuti passes away, his smile, his eternally ebullient smile, lives on forever.

Even at the end Jon never gave up hope and never stopped smiling. He was full of life and will always be remembered for his boyish swagger, his jocular yet most caring self.

What's the point of another tribute when all has been said and written about him? When the media has showered him with so many beautiful words, words which show he was a man much loved?

Just as laughs are always welcome, words about this man who enjoyed life to the full are never too many. If only we could all emulate him. Mourning him will not get him back but smiling will definitely reflect his sunny side back at us.

Jon was always the smiling giant, not only because of his height. He towered over others with his terribly contagious positiveness.

I got to know him through my daughter, Christa. Jon's sister, Alison, has been Christa's closest friend since they were four years old. From that age, when Jon was just under 10, he already had that glint in his eye which would never leave him.

He played pranks from that age onwards but lived his life caring most graciously for everyone around him. He turned little disasters and mishaps into fun happenings and made all around him realise that life is too beautiful to waste it in worrying unduly.

Even if a generation separated us, Jon taught me, or at least reinforced in me, that a smile, a laugh, a joke, conquers all.

The joker Jon, the physical one is now no more. Yet he smiles on in eternity.

I look up and picture him in the skies above, making light of our woes, our tears, our mundanity.

May we all, especially in these days of worldwide uncertainty, be like him in all he did, be it work, fun, family or sport: enjoyed everything to the full.

Smile down Jon, especially on your son, Gigi, your wife Elaine, your parents Monica and Hector, your sister Alison, her husband Hugh and their daughters Sophia and Anna, your mother-in-law and brother-in-law, your aunts, uncles, and cousins and all your family, friends and colleagues.