Jamie Burns
On Sunday, August 2nd, our beloved dad passed away quickly, surrounded by love, after a short-but-mighty health battle.
We are heartbroken that he left this world in the middle of what he called "one of the best years of his life", but we take comfort in knowing that his time ended exactly as he would have chosen - fast and painless and full of friends and family and stories and love. And a little bit of cursing and some colourful nicknames about annoying nurses.
My siblings and I have always loved hearing stories about our dad, and the truth is that even while he was with us, he was never the one to share them. Throughout childhood I remember dinners where guests would come over and all of us kids would just sit enthralled and delighted by the (usually hilarious) tales we were told.
We want to make this page like a family dinner conversation, full of the best and biggest and most "Jamie" stories you have. We will take them all and turn them into a book so that his kids, and grandkids, can read and re-read about all the wonderful quirks and oddities that made our dad such a sensational human.
(Note: Please excuse all the punctuation, appropriate capitalization, and words spelt completely as opposed to using cryptic short forms. Dad would not approve.)
Memory wall
That next year, my son Andrew was born. At some point soon thereafter, Jamie asked how "Andy" was doing. Not yet fully appreciating Jamie's unsurpassed talent for teasing with mordant wit, particularly anything that came close to "pretentious," I told him my son was NOT to be referred to as Andy but always as Andrew.
Whereupon Jamie started whistling the unmistakeable theme song from the Andy Griffith song. The first few times, I resented the teasing but after a while I decided it was funny. For years after, whenever Jamie wanted to make me laugh during a meeting, the more serious the better, he would tap the Andy Griffith song on the conference table.
As my daughter Lauren said, Jamie was "mischievous." He could always make me laugh and I have a huge storehouse of memories of him making me laugh for the next 35 years.
As I grew older, the admiration remained, the fear drained and the respect grew. I mean, what didn’t Jamie do?? He dabbled in and was success in about a million things! I have fond memories of drooling all over the Guelph property and wishing one day I could live like that :)
From my eyes, your dad was a strong and independent man who, along with Terry, raised their 4 children to be creative, loyal, kind and successful. That is an amazing legacy.
It may seem that your dad left you too soon, but I am thinking that he needed to get on to a new adventure and someone in another realm said ‘ Jamie, get in the car, we are leaving’.
With so much love to the entire Burns family,
Lindsay
I do not have photos, but I have memories that I will hold onto forever. Rest in peace, Jamie. Hugs to you.
Heaven just got a lot more interesting with Jamie there!
With love,
Len
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