Death of a friend

Two weeks ago, a good friend passed away. He was my age, single and led a life many men would desire - yet never held it over anyone. 

He suffered with his mental health sometimes, yet would never let you know. He always asked after my family and made great efforts to help his friends. Selfless, you might say. Kind and generous - certainly.

His achievements were god-like, pushing himself beyond limits most would avoid. What he put his body through to raise huge sums for charities, few could match in grit or ability. 

With an impressive career in marketing and a network of big-hitting friends, he was as humble as anyone you’d meet on the street.

He helped me so much in getting this newsletter up and running. I wasn’t confident at first. Nor was I sure people would like it. Every week, he responded with his thoughts and sent it to his friends to read. In his last text to me, the night before he died, he said he'd enjoyed the Keir Poppins edition.

So it is to him, I owe this edition. And for you, a moment of reflection in the poem below.

My friend - one of the few who could tick all the boxes in 'If' and make it look easy - I wish you good travels on your next adventures. You can bore me with it all in the bar when I next see you.

Dan 

If, by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated don't give way to hating,

    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same:

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    ⁠And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    ⁠Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

    ⁠And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son