Youth hoop hopeful
My brother Jimmy, three years my junior, died on July 17, 2017 at the age of 65. His funeral mass was celebrated today, July 27, at St. John’s Church in Winthrop. I delivered this eulogy at the conclusion of the mass.
Thank you all for being with us today. I speak for Peter, Peggy, Mary, and all of the members of the extended Burke family. Your presence means a great deal to us.
Today’s reading from Ecclesiastes is especially appropriate as we bid farewell to Jimmy Burke. To everything there is a season. It is familiar to all of us in the liturgy. It is also the source of one of the great hit songs of the 1960s, “Turn Turn Turn.”
It don’t know if that song was in Jimmy’s personal repertoire, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. It was his style. And as for the season – well, this is summertime. I’m sure than some of the happiest times of Jimmy’s life were the summers of his youth and young adulthood…sitting on the wall at the beach, surrounded by his friends, playing guitar, singing and harmonizing. So if ever he had to leave us, perhaps it’s best that it be in summer. This is Jimmy’s time.
Jimmy was the fourth of six children in our family. He was different from all of us in so many ways. He had a real gift for music. None of his siblings had that gift. Jimmy had no formal musical training, as far as I know, anyway. But he made himself a superb guitarist. He liked folk and rhythm and blues, and I‘m told that he sounded a bit like Crosby Stills and Nash.
You can see clips of Jimmy on the internet. Five years or so ago he went to some open mic nights at the Artists’ Coffee House. On their Facebook page, you can see him performing “Captain Jack” by Billy Joel. He’s also doing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” by Bob Dylan.
Meeting Rin Tin Tin, around 1958, at Boston Garden rodeo.
That is something else that’s especially fitting as we lay him to rest today. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
Jimmy also loved to sing karaoke. He was just a fun guy to be around.
He wasn’t just musical. Jimmy also had quite a talent for art. He could draw very realistic pictures and cartoons and caricatures. I remember one time when he took an empty Table Talk Pie box – one with the clear plastic top still intact – he reached in and drew perfect likeness of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble on the inside. It was his Flintstone Theater.
Another time he drew a picture of two steam shovels, a big one and an identical-looking smaller one. But instead of the claw scoop on the front of each one, he drew a rotary sandpaper attachment. And he put an explanatory caption on it for us.
“It’s a combination derrick and sander. The little one is the son of the big one. It’s Derrick Sander’s Son.”
What kind of a mind would make a creative and imaginative leap like that? Certainly not one that any of his brothers or sisters possessed. Jimmy was exceptional, all right. If he’d ever gone into advertising, he could have been a creative star.
He also had a talent for getting under everyone’s skin. Particularly with his nicknames. In one of the children’s books we had around the house, there was a story that had a cranky old billygoat. The story said, “My, but he was a crosspatch.”
Jimmy First Communion, with me (being a jerk) and our sister Mary.
That became Jimmy’s nickname for Peter: Crosspatch. Needless to say, big brother Peter didn’t like it at all. Nor did he like it when Jimmy taught the name to Jackie, who was two years old and just learning to talk. He’d say “Co-Pat! Co-Pat!” and burst into gales of laughter. And there wasn’t a blessed thing Peter could do about it.
I know also that a very proud moment of Jimmy’s young life came when he made the Little League A Division at age ten. He made the same team I had been on – the Braves. For the previous three years he had come to most of my games with our mother. My Braves teams had one great year and two terrible ones. Jimmy’s teams were better and more consistent over his Little League career than my teams were. And he was so happy to be a Brave like me.
Jimmy graduated from Saint John’s School in 1966 and from Dominic Savio High in 1970. And that was the extent of his education. He had no desire to go further. He had a few jobs along the way but nothing you could call a career. He was a homebody. And he had his guitar. He stayed with our parents in the house on Pleasant Street all the way to the end of their lives.
Along the way he became a star of another sort. He was a fixture on radio talk shows: Jordan Rich, Steve Levellie late at night, Bob Raleigh during the day. He was one of their regulars. It was a hard to beat Jimmy at radio trivia. Those guys came to refer to him as our good friend Jim from Winthrop.
Dad died in 1994 and Mom passed away in 1999. The house had to be sold. He was on his own, and the years since then were very difficult on him. But there were many people who knew Jimmy and did all they could to help him get by. I want to thank Peg Lyons of the Winthrop Housing Authority, and Nancy Williams and Kathy Dixon of the Senior Center. They knew what Jimmy was all about, they cut him slack when he needed it, and he knew that they cared.
Chillin’ with our dad in the man cave.
Peter, our oldest brother, became Jimmy’s surrogate parent. He handled Jimmy’s finances and went to bat for him and advocated for him with any authorities that Jimmy encountered. What Peter — and Monica, inviting Jimmy over for countless meals — did for Jimmy over the past 15 years or so has been nothing short of heroic. Their daughter Katie also, always had a soft spot for her uncle Jimmy, and she let him know it. That’s important.
I would like to conclude with Jimmy’s own words. These were written on papers that Peter found in his apartment. Jimmy knew. Death did not come as a surprise to him.
Life’s Lesson Learned
To whoever finds me lifeless, remember me fondly in your hearts.
Be a giver, not a taker. To give another love and to make them smile and laugh is life’s greatest reward.
Live each day as if it were your last day, with love and kindness towards all.
Thank you for all your kindness, and to you all who made me laugh, I thank you.
And to you all who made me cry, I thank you too.
After tears, laughter feels so much better, like a sunny day after endless rain.
I ask all of you to pray for me, and God speed to all until we meet again.
JCB
Jimmy and Mom.
Back at you, Jimmy. We thank you too.
You made a few of us cry along the way. But you made many more of us smile and laugh. So thank you.
You’re now with Mom and Dad and Jackie. Half of the Burke family of Winthrop has crossed the river.
Soon and very soon the rest of us will cross that river. And we’ll all be together again.
Until then, may God bless and keep you, little brother.
You’re free at last. Free at last.
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