(Editor's note: J.D. Crowe posted this remembrance on Facebook Wednesday. The funeral for his father will be held today.)
Three days after celebrating the life of our mom, we were mourning the sudden death of our dad.
Mom had been on a slow, miserable spiral for months. Her peaceful rest was a blessing. In her honor and with Dad s blessing, my two sisters and I orchestrated one of the most outrageous funerals in the history of Irvine, Ky. We celebrated her life with singing, story-telling and humor.
Dad's passing is another thing. Even at 85, we all thought he would be with us for a good while longer.
James Herbert Crowe, known as Uncle Herb to his many nephews and nieces, was a tall, strong, gentle giant of a man with a boyish grin, and a humble servant of the Lord.
Dad had been a Primitive Baptist minister for nearly 50 years. The youngest boy of 13 children, he was called upon to preach the funerals of many close friends and family, including seven of his own siblings. He always delivered beautiful, comforting sermons that warmed the hearts and lifted the spirits of the grieving.
But we couldn t ask our heartbroken dad to speak at his wife s funeral. That just wouldn t be right. Instead, we called on our recently ordained cousin, Larry Stone, to officiate the service and set the tone for our story-time eulogies.
Our mom, Dorothy Broaddus Crowe, was patient, loving and full of fun. She loved the Lord, her husband and her kids. And Lord, did she love pulling pranks on them all.
One at at time, Donna, Angela and I stood before the congregation and spoke about our childhood memories, re-telling some of the family stories that were told hundreds of times around our supper table. We had to tell the prankster stories too, otherwise we wouldn t have been able to get through it.
I've never heard so much laughter at a funeral.
It was enough to inspire our dad to rise out of the pews and into the pulpit for what would be his final sermon. You could almost hear the theme to Rocky when Dad stood before the congregation and put his passionate, powerful stamp on the ceremony. Amid his beautiful impromptu tribute about his wife s devotion to God, he also delivered the most hilarious line of the day. It was the perfect touch.
Many of our friends and Dad s co-workers he worked at IBM in Lexington for 55 years -- never knew he was a preacher. He didn t wear his religion on his sleeve. He wore it in his heart and in his deeds.
The only time I ever heard Dad cuss was when he was preaching the Word. From my seat in back of the church, shivers shot up my spine on those occasions I heard words like hell , or damned roll off his tongue. Only the spirit could make him spit out such vulgarities, even if he was quoting directly from the Bible.
At home, the only F-word Dad used reserved for whenever he smashed his thumb with a hammer or that one time I threw a baseball that ricocheted off his toe and broke the truck s windshield was Foot-to-it.
My dad was simply the best man I ve ever known.
I miss him something awful, but it s comforting to know he is now where he wants to be where he has always wanted to be. With our mom.