Category Archives: Family

Joe is interviewed by Vanity Fair (sort of)

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On the final page of Vanity Fair’s October 2015 issue, Whoopi Goldberg is interviewed. The questions are generic, sort of here’s-how-to-interview-anyone. So, I thought I’d give it a try and answer them myself. (At the end, I added a few more.)  Here goes….

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Being in the place God put me, doing the work He gave me.  It doesn’t get any better than this.  Likewise, the best definition of hell on earth is to be out of His will.

What is your greatest fear?

Just that very thing: being out of his will.  I fear nothing so much as disappointing Him.  That could happen to any of us. None of us is immune to temptation. That keeps me on my knees every day.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?

Abraham Lincoln. I’ve been to his birthplace, the restored “New Salem” where he lived as a young man, to his hometown of Springfield, his burial place, and in Washington, D.C., to Ford Theatre and the house where he died.  I own many books on Lincoln.

Which living person do you most admire?

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For better or for worse: The power of a spouse

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My friend Lydia was helping her 6-year-old daughter out of her Sunday clothes.

“Honey,” she said, “Did anyone tell you how pretty you look in your new dress?”

Little Holly said, “No. They thought it. They just forgot to tell me.”

I love the self-esteem that answer reveals.  Such parents–Terry and Lydia Martin of Columbus, Mississippi, my friends for over 40 years–surely did something right with this child.

Our task is to convey a healthy esteem not only to our children but to our spouses, our husband, our wife.

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So, how would you write your obituary?

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My son Neil and I had a few days to work on Margaret’s obituary.  Understandably, he could not bring himself to think about it while she lingered in the hospital on life support.  It was hard, but I worked on the essentials.

Margaret and I used to talk about these things. But not seriously. Somehow, you think this could never happen to you.

Margaret’s sister, widowed perhaps four years ago, told how someone praised her husband Jim with a good line which she later used as an opener in his memorial.  So, we began thinking about that.

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No two marriages are alike, but some are amazingly like yours

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“They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah” (Genesis 26:35).

No marriage is perfect.

The union of two godly well-intentioned disciples of Jesus Christ does not guarantee a successful marriage.

And even the successful ones–however we would define that!–in almost every case had their ups and downs.

So, if you’ve been feeling like a failure because a) your husband spends more time at the church than at home, b) your wife isn’t nearly the cook or housekeeper your mom was, c) you and your spouse argue, d) you have each lost your temper and said/done some things you regretted later, or e) all of the above, then….

Welcome to the human race.

I’ve been reading William J. Petersen’s book “25 Surprising Marriages: Faith-building Stories from the Lives of Famous Christians.”

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What my dad said about fathers

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“Who can find a virtuous man? For his price is far above diamonds” (Not Proverbs 31:10, but it well could be.)

My father, Carl J. McKeever (1912-2007), was someone no one who met him ever forgot.

Like a certain son of his, he was a talker.  Like that same son, he was interested in a thousand things and enjoyed good food, hearty laughter and great conversation with friends.  And he loved to write.

What’s interesting about his love for writing is he had a seventh grade education.  As the oldest of an even dozen children, he left school to help support the family when he was 12, and entered the coal mines to work alongside his father two years later.  His formal education may have ended, but dad was always learning and thinking and paying attention.

Most of his writing was done on note pads, in a lovely script which schools taught back in the 1920s. Something called the Palmer Method.  To his death at the age of 95, his handwriting was impressive.  Those notes he wrote were legible and intelligent, and remarkable for a coal miner.

I’m leading up to sharing one of them with you.  My brother Ron handed me this in Pop’s handwriting a few days ago during our brief visit at the restaurant in Jasper, Alabama.

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The pictures we made at the hospital and cemetery

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My daughter has been posting some photos which I would just as soon didn’t ever see the light of day.  It’s not that they’re bad pictures or that I don’t love the people in them.

They were shot either at the hospital where my wife lay on life support for six days or at the church in the luncheon following her funeral.  And they all have one terrible thing in common.

We’re all smiling.

I’ve noticed this in photographs our family has made in years past.  We would be at the funeral of my parents or a beloved aunt or uncle, and after the ceremonies have ended and people are milling around greeting one another or saying their farewells, someone breaks out a camera and begins grouping us.  And without fail, we do it.

We all smile.

I suppose it’s because we were taught from childhood if someone points a lens in our direction, we smile.  I certainly ask every person who sits before me to be sketched to smile.  Everyone looks better smiling, “including you,” I tell them.

But sometimes, it feels like a smile is out of place.

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A fool-proof plan for those needing more frustration in their lives

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You poor thing.  Life has been boring for you lately, and you have been searching for a way to perk it up, to insert a little anxiety into your days and wakefulness into your nights. We have the answer for you.  Eleven answers, in fact.

Here are Joe’s tried-and-proven techniques, all guaranteed to add frustration to your existence….

!. Buy a computer.

That’s all.  Just get a computer. From the first, you will be frustrated just looking for the “start” or “on/off” switch. You will gnash your teeth trying to figure out how to get everything out of the box and set it up. You will learn the definition of words someone made up, like “modem” and “yahoo” and “google.” Then, after your 10-year-old puts it all together and makes everything work, you will tear your hair out on an average of at least once a week.

This is not an exaggeration.  It’s why a large percentage of computer-users are bald. It’s why almost no old people are on the computer. They would have been, but the stress killed them before they got out of middle age.

The computer is perfect for people with insufficient frustration in their lives.

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My love language was “being on the same side.” Here’s the story.

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In an earlier article on this blog, we told how Judson Swihart’s book “How Do You  Say I Love You?”was all the rage in the 70s and 80s, until Gary Chapman restated and refined his material down to “Five Love Languages.”  Swihart’s book featured eight languages of love–meeting material needs, helping each other, spending time together, meeting emotional needs, saying it with words, saying it with with touch, being on the same side, and bringing out the best in the other.

When Margaret and I discovered the Swihart book decades ago and then did the assignment in the back to determine our love languages, we made some interesting discoveries.  We found that hers were “helping each other” and “spending time together”. Actually, this came as no surprise. I had known for some time that nothing made Margaret feel more loved than when I pitched in and helped around the house and we spent quality time together.

The surprise was discovering my own love language.

According to the formula, my love language was “being on the same side.”  If Margaret wanted Joe to feel loved, she should support him as a man, husband, father, Christian, minister, pastor, etc.  And she did.

I’m the one who had an awakening by this revelation.

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About my wife’s death: So much I’m thankful for

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“A woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.  Give her of the fruit of her own hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates” (Proverbs 31:30-31).

(My wife Margaret collapsed around 11 am on Friday, January 23, 2015.  After six days and nights of intensive hospital care during which she was completely unresonsive, she took her last breath of earthly air on Thursday, January 29.  Her memorial service was held at our church on Monday, February 2.)

A longtime friend who saw on Facebook a photo of my wife of over half a century, said, “I don’t think Margaret ever knew how beautiful she was.”

I agree.  Margaret Henderson McKeever was a victim of perfectionism, her own–which rarely let her feel satisfied with anything she was or had done–and that of a few significant others in her upbringing.  I will not be dumping on them here; for the most part, they themselves were the victims of someone else’s poor child-rearing.  Margaret overcame signifcant obstacles to become a wonderful Christian woman, a terrific pastor’s wife, a loving mother, a college graduate “with honors,” and in short, “somebody.”

Nothing in these writings should give the impression she was perfect.  Margaret was an imperfect woman married to a flawed husband, but the redeemed child of a Savior who does all things well. “Christ receiveth sinful men, even me with all my sin…..”

“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Okay, now.  Through my tears, which show no sign of abating, I give thanks….

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Signs of healing begin to appear

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“He healeth all our diseases…” (Psalm 103:3)

In the old Western novels, cowboys are taught that once a wound begins to itch, healing is on its way.

On January 23, a little over two weeks ago, my wife had what appears to have been a pulmonary embolism which triggered a cardiac arrest.  That was a Friday and on Wednesday night, with the counsel of doctors, my family made the decision to unplug life support.  My wife of nearly 53 years had not responded to any of the stimuli and treatments.  A physician friend said to me later, “Your wife died in the nail salon on Friday.”

It would appear so.

I’ve wept ever since.  We had a memorial service on Monday, February 2, and family members have been helping me with a thousand and one details.  Two wonderful ladies from our church spent the day here last Friday cleaning the house from top to bottom.  I’m still eating meals people brought.

And I’m still weepy. I asked a friend, “When do the tears stop?”  She answered, “I don’t know yet.  Jim’s only been gone 14 years.”

I do not grieve for Margaret. She was living with such pain and infirmities, and now that is all gone.  She is with the Lord, out of this pain and misery and dancing with the redeemed of the ages, if God’s Word can be believed.

I’m betting my life that it can.

A large number of people assure me they are praying for God’s healing for me.

Healing.  What a nice concept.

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