It is with sadness that I note the passing of Gilroy’s Paula
Burnson this week.
It is with sadness that I note the passing of Gilroy’s Paula Burnson this week. Facing murder charges as an accomplice in the death of her mother, the news reports say that she slashed her throat with a prison-issue razor blade. But you know, the news stories only give you the facts, the skeleton. The news doesn’t capture the essence and value of a life; it doesn’t capture the struggles of being human or explain the pitfalls. The stories just tell us that a woman was found dead in her jail cell. But there’s always so much more to a life than just the bare news facts.
She had been a member of Florence Trimble’s church since childhood, and her Sunday school teachers remember her fondly. Gilroy’s own Mother Teresa (in the form of Florence) had never given up on her, even when she struggled with drugs and rehab. Florence saw the spark of something good in Paula. And even when she herself lay dying, one of Florence’s last efforts was to make sure a copy of the Upper Room got to Paula, a publication which had an article in it about the importance of visiting those who are in prison and how it’s never too late for any of us to find forgiveness. Amazing to me to think of Florence on her deathbed, trying to settle her own affairs at the end of her life, yet taking the time to send this article to Paula in her prison cell. She also made sure that Paula’s pastor would be visiting her, haunting the pastor with the final instruction, “Don’t give up on her.”
We can land on the moon; we can make photos of the past creation of our stars, yet we can’t figure out what would have kept this daughter who was once lovingly held in her mother’s arms as a beautiful baby from someday being a suspect mother’s and causing her own demise. What would it have taken to turn Paula’s life from one of tragedy to one with a better outcome? In her letters from prison, she sounded rational, a bit cynical, thoughtful, and intelligent.
Maybe it was the news that last Wednesday her old boyfriend Beckwith had made bail and been released that sent her over the edge. Maybe it was the news that he was married recently to a woman who fell in love with him after reading media accounts of the crime. Beckwith was married by Judge Art Danner, whose court he will be in this fall when he goes on trial for murder. Who knows what part Paula played in trying to protect her boyfriend? Of course, she was under the influence of both heroin and the man providing her with drugs, a devastating combination. “We first make our habits, and then our habits make us,” as John Dryden put it.
When the people of Paula’s church heard of her imprisonment, they expressed their compassion for her, their memories of her, and their prayers for her. Her death reminds me of the message of Florence’s life: We can always do more to help each other. There are other potential Paulas around us, and who knows when help from us might make a difference in a young person’s life? “Never give up,” Florence said, “There is always hope; nothing is unforgivable, and nothing is beyond the reach of love. Every life has value just as it is – every person is redeemable.” Can you imagine what kind of society we would live in if we all treated each other with the forgiveness of a Florence?
