The Dunfey-Keefe Family Website
James T. Keefe
KEEFE, James T.
Beloved Husband and Father Suddenly, in Dorchester, February 12th. Beloved husband of Cara McCarthy. Loving father of Camila L. McCarthy Keefe of Dorchester. Son of Janet Keefe Cataldo (Mansfield) and her late husband Joseph Cataldo of Manchester, NH, and the late James T. Keefe. Brother of Joseph Keefe, Quentin Keefe, Thomas Keefe, Paul Keefe, Anne Farley, all of NH, Maura Keefe of Washington, DC, and Patrick Keefe of NH.
Survived by many nieces and nephews. Visiting hours in the Murphy Funeral Home, 1020 Dorchester Ave., DORCHESTER, Friday 4-8 P.M. Funeral Mass in St. Margaret Church of St. Teresa of Calcutta Parish, 800 Columbia Rd., Dorchester, Saturday morning, February 18, at 10 A.M. Relatives and friends invited. Jim was a lifelong local musician and artist. In lieu of flowers, donations in Jim's memory may be made to the American Heart Assoc. , P.O. Box 3049, Syracuse, NY 13220-3049. Interment private. For directions and guestbook,
Published in The Boston Globe on Feb. 15, 2017
Patrick's eulogy for Jim, recalling their time living together in NYC, two decades ago:
Jim’s Eulogy
My brother Jim I swear was the King of New York. He knew all the streets knew how to get to all the parks and museums and places of interest, the Vietnamese and Korean restaurants; and he was an unofficial Manhattan tour guide hired and promoted by himself - he had memorized the grid and he knew the subway system by heart, had internalized it, and when he went underground down into the earth, he knew where every transit line began, meandered and terminated, and he knew all the sooty grey faces of these men and women who lived in this frayed light beneath the earth.
My brother Jim I swear was a Zen master. When playing the guitar or painting he could just disappear, vanish into his work, leave behind the mundane. And his paintings reflected New York--they were brash and sorrowful, gritty and sometimes haunting; they were colossal in size, gaudy monstrosities crying out in anguish and ecstasy, pulsating with kinetic energy; they were riotous and profane, chaste and immaculate, they were Blue Velvet and Taxi Driver and John Lenon; they were magnificent behemoths lurid testaments to his personal demons and to the irrepressible passing of time; and in the the end they were redemptive
Yes, my brother Jimmy passed away on Sunday evening. He was so full of life that his passing seems incongruous. Kerouac once wrote, “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
And so, to my brother Jim, that magnificient yellow roman candle, we say good-bye, you’ll be forever missed and forever loved. RIP, brother.
