Jools

Thursday, 09 July 2009 at 04:32

They say eulogies are only fit for kings and heroes. Well I tell you Jools was the king of inspiration and the hero of aspiration. The witty, the dedicated, the kind hearted, the irrepressible, totally irreplaceable Jools. A constant kindness and service to his friends, a source of perpetual entertainment and a genuine tour de force of absolute individuality – this was our friend – on an unstoppable race in his quest for greatness in everything and anything where greatness could be attained.

Jools was unique. Someone you meet once in your life. This was a man who made success his style of living. Its horribly ironic that he had discovered the real great value of life, and its associated rewards and challenges. A value that few ever get to see even though it dangles there before them but gets ignored during the pointless destracting day-to-day business of human life. But he had found it, appreciated its worth and connected with it, he was there to absorb it and chomp through it, feeding on it, living each passing second of it. He took each moment and made it his. He realized that life was just a sequence of great possibilities just there for the taking. Enthusiasm and hard work allowed him to conquer all the but the most impossible of them. Satisfaction from the conquest of these challenges just compounded his enthusiasm and hard work. My God. What we can all learn from Jools.

It was in the small hours of Sunday morning only hours before his death that I found myself talking to him over the internet. Still awake at 2am a random encounter on the facebook chat system allowed me to tell him that id be returning from the States to London in September and that a dinner and a night out with him and my girlfriend sounded like a great plan. I hadn’t seen Jools a lot since I moved to New York with my job last summer. He seemed his usual self, straightforward but chatty and said that he was only too pleased to make time for us - typically Jools, with never a second in the day more precious than time with his friends. I suggested a date for a meetup and he said “done”, I went to bed soon afterwards and was only to hear of his fate on Tuesday.

I still vividly remember the first time I met Jools. I was about to start work in London for an internship with ABN AMRO. I organized some UCL accommodation down Charlotte Street with a few people id met on doctorjob.com, one of whom was Jools. I remember the first day we met. Id moved all my stuff in my room during the afternoon and during the process Jools had texted me to let me know he was on his way and close by. I remember a knock on my door and opening it to see Jools – I somehow had an expectation that he was so much taller!! Within minutes we were chatting casually and stepped out of the block to walk around Leicester Square and the west end grabbing lunch and a coffee.

At the bank that summer Jools was elected our social rep. He organized nights out once or twice a week and helped the whole intern set gel more closely. It was something he was perfectly suited for. That character of his that allowed him to be so open, so acceptable to all types of human personality, made him a popular character that summer. I enjoyed my time with him. He was a centre of entertainment and fun for those weeks on so many different counts. I remember him staying him up all night to finish of a group intern project for HR that I had helped to write. It was something that was crucial to our chances of getting a job there, we and the rest of the group asked Jools to format the document and set the right font and insert some graphics – just some finishing touches if you like. Jools ended up staying in the office all night and handing the document in with 5 minutes to spare before the 8am deadline the next day! This was Jools in his element – always testing the limits but happy to take on responsibility in any task, and generally guaranteed to do anything in the most entertaining way possible. Jools was there to help anyone with anything. Last year he helped setup my London to New York leaving party and organized a joint birthday party for my girlfriend and a friend. We didn’t even need to ask. The whole thing had been organized by him a week beforehand.

My thoughts go to his family and other friends here. But let us not bury ourselves in despair. There is some aptness in the media’s public celebration of his life and his achievements. I can’t help but feel his content wry smile beaming down onto us somewhere from above accompanied by a whisper of “I wouldn’t have wanted to be remembered in any other way.” And is it not consoling that Jools, a tragic hero, whose talents were so unique but yet so susceptible to emotional corruption, finds his great legacy today constructed out of the good-hearted publicity he yearned for all his life, a kind of ultimate catharsis, or last chapter, that we can all celebrate and take comfort in?

Jools, - your spirit will remain in our minds and lives more vivdly than any impression you tried to make in your short life, your legend invincible and your zest for life untouchable and lying there in some part of our souls, never to pass away – your personality forever there to act as an energy in our lives and decisions forever.

Jools – you truly filled that “unforgiving minute” every minute of every day and may that be a tonic for life in everyone that ever knew you.

A one and only.

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!

If - Rudyard Kipling