We just returned from Alabama. The family all knows about the nearly 70 “comments” you have left on this blog and several have urged me to thank you here. My sister Carolyn is printing them out so Mom can read them.

I started out trying to respond to each of them, and I may yet. Add to those another large number that bypassed the “comments” section and came straight to my internet mailbox. Then, tonight when we checked the mailbox in the front yard, a dozen or so cards were in the three-days’ mail.

Some of our dear friends called us, and others sent flowers. And several even attended the service. That was most overwhelming of all.

Thank you. So very much.

Monday, I borrowed Carolyn’s computer and typed the program for the service. On one side, we just photocopied the obituary, on the right we listed the order of the speakers (Pastor Mickey Crane, my nephew Steve McKeever, our sister Patricia Phelps filling in for our brother Glenn who decided he could not do this, me, and then our brother Ronnie; interspersed with two songs each from our three Kilgore cousins–Johnny, Mike, and Rebecca–and our cousin Dr. Bill Chadwick), and on the back side a poem I wrote for Dad several years ago called “The Last Mantrip,” comparing the coalminers’ ride out of the darkness to the top of the mine and daylight to the last trip we make in Christ, leaving behind the darkness of this world and arriving in His glory. It’s not great poetry, but Dad liked it and even had it printed in the National Journal for the United Mine Workers Union. That was very special.

Anyway, I typed it and then found a printer who could print it out at that moment so we would have it for that evening, to give out at the wake and next morning at the service.

Monday noon, while waiting on Mom and Patricia to return from getting their hair done in Double Springs, I sketched out a drawing of Pop’s empty chair and colored it, and decided to run off copies to give to special friends. The printer said, “No, I don’t have a color printer.” He told me who did, but promised it would cost an arm and a leg. That’s when I decided to run by the First Baptist Church (of Jasper; which is where Carolyn lives and the wake would be held).

At the church, I ran into assistant ministers Barry Tice and Conrad Howell, the two nicest guys on the planet. “We will be delighted to run that off for you,” they said. “How many do you want?” They (okay, actually Brittany, the receptionist) did 75–and they turned out so beautiful. I was thrilled by the way they looked.

Dad always encouraged my drawing. I was 8 years old–we’re talking 1948 near Beckley, West Virginia–and sometimes after supper, he would be in his recliner following a long day inside the coal mines. He had the radio on, and I’d be messing around, reading the comics or something. He would say, “Get your paper and draw me.” I’d find a notebook and get to work and he would fall asleep. Ten minutes later, he would rouse and say, “Let me see it.” He’d study it and say, “Move the ear up just a little,” or “Move the eyes in a little closer.” I’d erase and redraw and he would go back to sleep.

For years I drew a comic character in my cartoons that was based on him. I quit doing it when people thought it looked just like me. LOL.

At the funeral for my little segment, I told them:

1) Monday, the man from the medical supplies company came by the house to pick up the hospital bed. We’d only had it a month. He drove around to the back door and I was helping him. He said, “Mr. McKeever died?” I said, “Yes. Saturday.” He said, “He was a real character.” I laughed. “You met him only once, in his 96th year, one month before he died–and you saw what a character he was!” He said, “He had a lot of things to tell me.”

I said, “The truth is, Dad came from a family of characters.” (Four of his sisters were sitting in front of me. “Maureen is a character. So is Mae and Kate. Annie is a character, and Erin, Bettye, and Georgelle. Marion–whom we all called Gip–was a character. John L. was, and Edwin and Pat.” Then, looking at my siblings, I said, “Ronnie is a character. Glenn is. Patricia and Carolyn are characters. And Charlie–who went to heaven a year ago–was the characterest one of us all!” I paused and said, “I suppose I’m the only exception in this entire family.” (laughter, of course–which was the intention.)

2) Dad never stopped growing his entire life. He had to drop out of school in the 7th grade and go to work, but he kept reading and learning. He had an insatiable appetite to know things. When I would come to visit Mom and Dad, I’d stagger into the house after a tiring 7 hour drive, and after we greeted one another, Pop would say, “Sit down here and I want to show you something.” He would hand over clippings and newspaper segments, magazine articles he had circled, a book he had marked up–all for me to read immediately and respond to.

My sister Carolyn said Tuesday night that our 95-year-old father has current subscriptions to Fortune, Inc., Time, and three other magazines. My sister Patricia handed me the large-print Bible I gave to Dad last year. He wrote in the flyleaf “Give to Joe on my death.” I flipped through it and was pleased to see the underlinings in his shaky hand, and that he had emphasized Romans 8:1, everyone’s favorite verse.

Some five years ago, Dad was sitting on the front porch swing and I on a chair nearby. I said, “Dad, I’m so glad to have seen you grow old. You are a far better man now than you were in your youth.” He said, “Well, you hope you grow.”

Pastor Mickey Crane told the congregation that Dad once said to him, in apparent reference to the rough early life he lived, “I believe in the God of the second chance.”

Ron told of the time in the early 1940s, when he would walk to the mines to meet Dad at the end of his shift in order to walk back home with him. “Sometimes, he would have put in two 8-hour shifts, back to back, in order to feed his large family. And when I got to the mines, he would be laying on the ground, trying to get his back to straighten out.” Most of us thought of those 36 inch seams of coal in which those men would spend their days. Ron’s eyes teared up as he said, “You have to love someone who would do that for you.”

No one mentioned this, but I thought of that time in 1960 when he almost died and the hospital took all those x-rays. The doctor said, “Mr. McKeever, when did you break your back?” “I never did.” “Oh yes. Here it is. And it didn’t mend properly.”

Dad recalled the time he was hurt in the West Virginia mines and did not have time to see to it, but just worked on through it. A broken back.

You can see why this family feels it owes this man such a debt of love and gratitude.

I met only two men at the wake who said, “We worked in the mines with your Dad.” When you’re 95 years old, you’ve outlived almost all your friends and colleagues. Most of the people who came by the funeral home Monday night and attended the funeral Tuesday were either relatives or friends of the children. (But think what a reception committee met Dad on the other shore!)

I ended my part with a verse of scripture I’ve mentioned here recently. Luke 14:14 “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (I’ll let you read the context of it yourself. You will find it has in it an instruction, a promise, and an incentive.)

A word about the resurrection of the righteous: My dad was not good enough to go to Heaven. (Pause) But you’re not either, friend. Fortunately, going to Heaven is not about being good. It’s about trusting Christ, and letting Him make us righteous.

I treasure that verse in II Corinthians 5 that says, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” That’s how we become righteous. He does it.

“Not by works of righteousness that we have done,” we’re told in Titus 3:5, “but according to His mercy He has saved us.” It’s all of Jesus and His mercy.

Thank God.

It’s so overwhelming.

(*About the drawing. Pop’s chair is the kind that lifts you to your feet and thrusts you out, and that is the control lying on the arm. His candy jar sits on the floor, filled with peppermint balls. On the table is a drink of some kind, tea probably, and two remotes for his television. They live way, way out in the country and subscribe to Direct TV, so he had two remotes–one to turn it on and the other to change channels. Pop is the only one who knew how to operate it. On the wall behind his head are three framed drawings I’d done over the last few years–one of Dad reading the paper, one of his house, and on the right, the old house place on the next hill where Mom was born and where we lived for short stints at various times.)