The Boyd Family Thanks You, Dr. Burke

S.G. Burke Fullerton, MDCM

- A Life Celebrated

Funerals are things I once dreaded and still do. When there are strong feelings of compassion and love for the deceased, funerals are even harder, even if they are intended to be a celebration of life.

Today at a memorial service for our family doctor, Burke, my two sisters, Muriel, Clara and I said goodbye in a formal sense but in each of our hearts and minds there were special recollections of our family relationship with Dr. Burke.

My unforgettable recollection occurred when he became our family doctor. I was about seven years old and it was winter.

On my way to school I could not resist sliding on the icy sidewalks, although there were clear patches on which I could safely walk. Even though I could hear my father’s voice saying: “Don’t do that!”

I decided I could do it. But what is life to a young boy unless there’s adventure. Needless to say I fell and when I went down I did so with such a crash that I split my forehead open and I was bleeding profusely.

Until I go home I used the sleeve of my jacket to stop the bleeding. I was always falling and getting cut. When I returned home to face the music, my mother, to put it mildly, was not impressed especially as our “coloured” doctor, Dr. Waddell, had died recently and we could not, or had not, found a replacement.

But my bleeding forehead was the necessity that gave rise to my mother’s invention.

She took me by the hand to Dr. Burke and we walked into his office. He looked at my bleeding forehead but before she would let him touch me, mother asked him directly:

“Doctor, do you discriminate against coloured?” Dr. Burke said: “No!”

It was okay then, so Mother let him proceed.

He sat me down pulled out a needle and thread and stitched up my forehead and although I could feel every slice of that needle going through the skin of my forehead I never let on, or uttered a sound.

That’s how Dr. Burke became our family doctor.

Something else, just as profound, happened that day that since remains with me.

No, it is not the stitches for they have long gone and although there was a scar, it is not that; yet, it remains with me to this day. Something else became part of my being that day.

I came instantly to the belief that day that no one in Canada should ever have to ask that question; no one in Canada should ever have to answer to it.

That day I became a passionate opponent of racism.

The Boyd family thanks you, Dr. Burke.

As always, Well wishes,
F. Stanley Boyd