A POEM GIVES ME HOPE AND SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE

Despite the condition I was in, the words of Rudyard Kipling’s poem encouraged me. They showed me what I wanted to strive for. Even now, sixty years later, words from it come back to me when I need to be reminded.

I didn’t believe in God at the time, but He must have been with me. It was a blessing to have had my poetry book there, and to have a doctor find that poem and be thoughtful enough to have me read it. The words were powerful and helped me find my way through good times and bad times.

When I awoke, I was in a ward with many empty beds, no one but me there. I looked at the chart on the nightstand, finding out I was at Crease Clinic, a part of Riverview Hospital. This place had a bad reputation. In fact, it was the object of many cruel jokes. I pulled the covers over my head and hid myself. Back to sleep.

But although this was a bad place to be, there was good here as well. Gerald McDougall, the doctor who treated me here was a caring person, someone I would stay connected with for many years.

You may be wondering by now what the rest of the poem was like for it to have made such a big impact on me. And so, I will share.

Are any of those line meaningful to you in the situation you’re finding yourself in?

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!