We held the final graveside dedication for my father, Robert A. Burns, on September 20, 2024. It was my birthday and was 2 years and 5 days since Bob’s passing. I have had time to mourn, grieve, laugh, get angry, research, 2nd guess, plan, analyze, cry, and love Bob during that stretch. I am in many ways grateful for it, the time, though I don’t know if I would have planned to draw the process out for so long if given the option up front.
Bob is buried in the Texas State Cemetery, which is akin being interred in the Arlington National Cemetery for a Texan. He rests diagonally from Jerry Jeff Walker and about sixty feet to the left of Chris Kyle. The process to get him interned there was neither fast nor easy! There was some bureaucracy to hurdle (Bob would have hit at least one feller in the mouth if he would have been present) and then there was an issue with his headstone: any and every monument in the cemetery is considered a State Historic Monument and has to go through a design approval process before work can even. It is not a fast process… Also, when the final design was approved, the man carving Bob’s head stone was an artist and “would not be hurried!”
Then there was arranging schedules for all the folks that wanted to be there. The Newberry’s had two son’s graduation college, one going to Marine OCS, The Talley’s moved to California, The Bryant’s had a trips already scheduled here and there, my job was laced with travel, assorted cousins had summer vacations and illnesses, friends were scattered on various trips from Portugal to Maine. In the end, we settled on a date that mostly worked for everyone. A day that was 1 day after I flew in from Scotland and the 51st anniversary of my birth. I made it work.
The cemetery staff was amazing! They closed the cemetery for us from 9AM-2PM and gave us run of the reception hall and ornately furnished receiving room (leather chairs, bronze statues, and oil paintings on the wall). The weather was hot, but the skies were blue. Over 40 folks made the trek into Austin to honor Bob. There was a duet performance of Sweet Beulah Land by his former wife, Katie, and his best friend, Joseph. A piper played Danny Boy as the service started, amazing Grace during the service, and then a Taps/Scotland the Brave after the Marine Corps Honor Guard fired a 3-rifle, multi-volley, salute and the flag was presented. Some of us spoke and there was more laughter than tears. Fajitas were served afterward because Bob was partial to them. He would have loved the whole affair.
As I said in my eulogy of him that day, I miss Bob. I miss his pipe, his drawl, the boyish twinkle in his eyes when he was being naughty, his cigars, his stories, that index finger stabbing into the table in time to emphasize a point he was making and I mourn the missed opportunities, the memories never made, and despise the thief of time that came with his sudden and untimely passing.
