Searching for Words
In the weeks that have followed I have found myself simply unable to write. Filled with an overwhelming sense of loss, insecurity, and the typical worries of a father, I felt that anything I could possibly write would be insignificant. What can anyone say when faced with such death and destruction? What words could possibly describe the loss?
What writing did come, I could not bring myself to finish. Anything which I did finish felt very, very unimportant in light of everything that had taken place. It was as if my writing had been attacked that day as well, and sat shattered among the rubble I saw on television each night.
Well intentioned colleagues wrote to tell me that our writing perhaps is more important now than ever – important for those seeking God in the midst of such tragedy, important in offering comfort, important in uniting our country, important in explaining the Church’s position on just war. Yet, I continue to struggle and I pray. It’s all I can seem to bring myself to do.
A Time to Heal
Slowly, what I have come to realize is that I need time to heal. As a writer it should not be a surprise that my healing came through writing. It came as I interviewed Father Gino Sylva – a New Jersey priest that counseled rescue workers the day after the attack. I wept as I reread his interview, particularly Fr. Gino's encounter with a former missing parishioner’s daughter. It came as I wept again in seeing the National Catholic Register’s photo of the fatally wounded Father Mychal Judge being carried away from the World Trade Center. And it came as I interviewed Father John Dobrosky and tried to comprehend his loss – 26 parishioners killed in the attack. These stories of courage, love, and sacrifice have been cathartic. They have offered me healing and hope.
None, however, have offered me as much hope as that of Thomas Burnett Jr.
Originally from Bloomington, Minnesota, Burnett worked as senior vice president and chief operating officer with Thoratec Corporation, a medical equipment company in Pleasanton, Calif. He was one of the 45 passengers on board Flight 93, bound from Newark to San Francisco, that crashed in rural, southwest Pennsylvania. He leaves behind a wife and three young daughters.
Burnett, an active parishioner at St. Isidore’s Catholic Church in Danville, California, was a true patriot. Described as a man of quick wit, he enjoyed reading history and understood the value and the cost of freedom. His friend and employer, Keith Grossman, said that Burnett had three busts in his office – one of Teddy Roosevelt, one of Abraham Lincoln, and one of Sir Winston Churchill.
Undoubtedly, it was this love of history, and his strong and intellectual faith that drove him to do what he did on that plane.
Greater Love
In his last phone call to his wife he said, “I know we’re all going to die – there’s three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey.” His wife Deena later said, “He always believed that God gave us the choice for evil or good. He figured that these people were doing evil instead of good – that was his philosophy of life.”
While we do not know exactly what happened in the moments that followed, we can conclude the following.
Burnett knew his place. When he began having children, he gave up golfing because he didn’t want to spend the time away from his children. He did this for his family. Traveling on business, Burnett was scheduled to take a later flight. Yet, he booked an earlier flight in order to get home earlier to his family. And, when he and the others decided to “do something” about the hijackers, this too he did for his family.
While he had many successes in his career, he was most content at home. In dying he showed us how to live.
Burnett, and so many others like him, has demonstrated to us the face of God in times such as these. For his actions personify Christ’s words: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
Donations to the Thomas E. Burnett Jr. Family Memorial Fund can be made to:
CIBC Oppenheimer Corporation
Account # 074-17387-10
580 California Street, Suite 2300
San Francisco, CA 94104
