Death, admonished the poet John Donne, be not proud.

“Mighty and dreadful” though it is considered to be, death’s power is ultimately an illusion. The souls and memories of those it claims live on; the consequences of their actions continue to reverberate in the lives of others.

This holds particularly true of those who extended the hand of fellowship, those who offered encouragement or direction, those who lived their lives in such ways they provided models we might all aspire to emulate.

It’s been said the affect of one good-hearted person on the sum total of human experience is incalculable and never-ending. Their deeds and their examples transcend death and achieve an immortality of sorts.

And recently Bermuda has been mourning the loss of four such individuals.

All of them provided strength in time of distress, courage in time of fear, comfort, kindness and inspiration in time of doubt and tribulation. All of them were credits to their Island home.

Neehari Robinson was just 12 years old when he lost his hard-fought battle against cancer.

Words seem small and entirely inadequate compared to the magnitude of the loss the Robinson family has endured. Words offer slim consolation when his parents and siblings are contending with unimaginable pain. Words cannot undo what has happened.

But such was Neehari’s determination, stamina and infectious sense of optimism, the grief they feel now will eventually be transformed into a renewed sense of possibility.

The uncertainty and sense of powerlessness they are experiencing will be replaced by a commitment to continue to do all the things Neehari left undone, ensuring his memory and his legacy do indeed survive him.

For although just a child, Neehari created an impressive and genuinely enviable legacy during his brief lifetime. As his father, Otis Robinson, has said Neehari had the special gift of empathy – no matter how dire or difficult his own circumstances “he wanted to help everyone ...

“He touched the lives of so many people along the way, from Bermuda to the US, the UK and Jamaica. He had so much love and brought so many people together.”

While his life was cruelly abbreviated, it was meaningful in ways which will resonate with his family, friends and community for decades to come.

Robert “Bobby” Barritt was many things during his long lifetime – a family man and a businessman, a talented and prolific painter, a social activist, a politician and a Cabinet Minister.

Like all true artists, he painted not what he saw but what he thought about what he saw.

He created an illuminating body of work which reflected both the turmoil and the hope which marked Bermuda’s long-delayed social and racial transformation in the 1950s and ‘60s, at once one of the most pivotal and consequential chapters in our long history.

Bringing an artist’s eye and a historian’s instinct for the telling and significant detail to the scenes he was witnessing, Mr Barritt captured the Island in a state of flux with a facility and precision which makes his work both a portrait of the turbulent times in which it was produced as well as timeless.

Generations to come will be blessed to see that remarkable watershed moment in our development through his eyes.

Carlston “Blondy” Spencer was a larger-than-life monument of a man, a seemingly permanent fixture on the Bermuda scene.

One of the Island’s first and most accomplished bodybuilders, when he wasn’t at the gym he found time to channel his prodigious energies into careers as a vocalist with some of Bermuda’s best known bands during the Golden Age of Tourism and as a restaurateur (Captain Blondy’s in Hamilton Parish was every bit as much a Bermuda institution as he was).

When the father-of-nine died at the age of 72 on June 10, it seemed incomprehensible that a figure possessed of such elemental vitality and such inexhaustible supplies of selflessness could have been so abruptly taken from us.

Finally, there was Hazel Lowe. Along with her late husband, Bobby, she ran the exquisite jewel box of a hotel that was the Salt Kettle Guest House for decades.

A pocket Venus as well as something of a pocket battleship when she had to be, she was a small woman with an enormous presence — generous, elegant and welcoming as well as fiercely efficient.

Combining natural grace with her purposeful drive, she set a standard for Bermudian hospitality and charm which few other hoteliers have ever matched. As her daughter, Suzie, remarked without overstating the case at all: “Hazel touched everyone she met with her delicious sense of humour, graciousness empathy, charm, strength and wisdom.

“She always made time for everyone and she had the magical knack of making an individual feel incredibly special.”

Just how special is reflected in the number of repeat visitors the Salt Kettle property attracted over the years. The loyalty of its clientele provided the most resounding endorsement imaginable of the intimate style Mrs Lowe insisted on at the family-run hotel.

Although Bermuda is poorer for having lost these four indelible souls, we are immeasurably richer for having known them. As Bob Marley, a poet of more recent vintage, said: “The winds that sometimes take something we love, are the same that bring us something we learn to love.

“Therefore we should not cry about something that was taken from us, but, yes, love what we have been given. Because what is really ours is never gone forever.”