Sue's Blog

Monday, February 13, 2012

A Tribute to Burton Winters - by Dr. Phil Earle

I just received the following in the comments area of Sue's Blog.

This is a very touching tribute to Burton Winters and explains how this young man from Labrador has united our Newfoundland and Labrador soul.

After reading this tribute please visit the facebook group PRESS HERE


The Hero

Tribute to Burton Winters

After I hear your name all sound disappears, after I see your picture, your boyish grin and the exuberance of your eyes, my mind becomes blind to whatever my eyes are seeing. So deep have you touched me, moving the spirit of love, unfettered, within my soul, that my worldly senses are erased, wiping away the ignorant, temporal, conditioned knowledge of ‘myself’.

So great was your desire to be with those you loved, to succeed upon a journey that, unknown to you, was endless. Undaunted by the kilometers of the ice and snow, by the darkness and the cold, by the time in the loneliness of nowhere, you came face to face with the truth of your own soul. You became one with the birth place and source of your, and mans, greatest character. One with that bit of the energy of spirit that was your own, that energy of spirit who’s totality is universally pervasive and eternal.

Your struggle will never leave our hearts now, we are your people now, we are your family because you have made us so. The people of Newfoundland and Labrador, we love you in our souls. Your surrounding outward journey into trial and suffering lead you inwardly into yourself, where we know you found strength, self-reliance and courage, just as our forefathers did in making this wild, inebriate place our home.

It is sad that your life and the exuberance of your spirit has been taken. But we know that even though you did not make it back to tell us about what you learned through the pain and suffering you felt out there in that great loneliness .......it has been shown to us by your undaunted courage and determination. The purest qualities of any hero who has ever lived on this planet.

You, Burton, who you were and what you did will never grow old, just like our boys at Beaumont Hamel in the First World War, because the actions of heroes are always beyond
the element of time.

RIP ‘ole son’, RIP. Love ya.

Phil Earle
Carbonear

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It certainly is a beautiful tribute for this dear boy who so wantonly lost his life. He was obviously still alive for a long while after getting lost. He would probably have been found alive had the Federal Search and Rescue Helicopter being sent to rescue him. Shame on them.