I met Rose Vella soon after her daughter, Daphne Caruana Galizia, was killed. I hadn’t known her before. She was of my grandparents’ generation, who had passed many years before.

It took a few vigils for me to say hello and introduce myself. What do you say to someone who has lost so much in such a horrific manner?

I was greeted by a woman who was gentle and quiet, who thanked me for being part of Occupy Justice, then still newly formed. That moment struck me and stuck with me. As did every other meeting with her.

Here was a woman who had suffered such a tremendous loss. A woman who, despite that loss, was not given the chance to quietly grieve the death of her daughter because, if let to pass, the same institutional failures that allowed her daughter to be killed would have ensured that justice would never be served.

So, despite unimaginable suffering, Mrs Vella, flanked by her husband Michael, her three daughters, their partners and her grandchildren, turned up every month to the vigil held in honour of her daughter Daphne.

Mrs Vella’s presence was notable and important. It reminded everyone present and watching, whether behind twitching curtains or otherwise, that it wasn’t an ideology that was killed or a blog that was shut down. Daphne was a woman who had been killed, and this here was her mother, standing there, rain or shine, demanding answers, demanding justice. Mrs Vella was a humbling reminder of Daphne’s humanity.

So after every vigil, I would say hello. Without fail, despite the heaviness of what that day must have meant to her, she would ask after my family. Incredibly, Mrs Vella continued to care about other people. Mrs Vella was as civilised as she was resilient.

Despite whatever fresh horror and deep-seated cruelty emerged during the compilation of evidence into her daughter’s death, Rose turned up at court again and again. A reminder to those accused that Daphne’s assassination was not just ‘a job’. They had killed her daughter and she was not about to let them forget it.

Mrs Vella’s passing has filled me with great sadness and an even greater anger. Sadness that a woman of such principle has been lost, sadness that Daphne’s family have lost another member of their precious family, yet at the same time a fierce anger fills me when I think that her last years were a source of such sorrow. I am angry that such a gentle woman was treated with such callousness by her country, I am angry that despite her suffering and tireless efforts, Rose Vella did not live to see full justice for her daughter Daphne.

I only got to know Mrs Vella five years ago. But I don’t imagine her character emerged in her later years.

She was a woman of principle, fortitude, strength and compassion, and maybe that was her greatest strength. Over the last years I have come to know her family well and can say that they are cut from the same cloth. Mrs Vella raised a family of warriors who, despite the blows they have faced, have come together and ploughed ahead to insist that justice is served for their daughter, sister, mother, aunt, wife.

Together they have forced this country to look into its festered soul and take stock of itself.

Mrs Vella was a woman of dignity. Despite her physical frailty, she would not be cowed or frightened by jeering crowds in real life and cruel words on the internet. She was a woman of mettle. They don’t often make them like her anymore, but they really should. We have a lot to learn from her. Condolences to her family.

May she finally rest in peace.