This is an opinion column.

I grew up in a Baptist church, but somehow since, I started praying for the dead.

Praying for the dead is a very un-Baptist-like thing. We're supposed to believe that, once your plane has left the gate, your final destination is locked in.

The closest thing Baptists have to praying for the dead is the preacher at the funeral. No matter whether he knew the deceased or not, he will assure everyone there that Bob is in a better place, even if Bob was the sort of sorry SOB who'd kick a dog as soon as pet one.

Praying for the departed is supposed to be a Catholic thing, but I don't pray for souls like Catholics, either. I'll leave it to the Lord to sort the sheep from the goats.

Rather, I think, when someone who's been a particular blessing in my life is gone, it's my way of thanking the Almighty for having the opportunity to have known them.

Thank you. And Amen.

It's a short prayer.

It surprised me Saturday when I caught myself praying for John McCain.

I never met McCain, much less knew him. Arizona politics has all the similarities to Alabama as a porcupine does to a cactus. Both can be prickly, but that's about it.

But once he was gone, it was that much more clear what a rarity McCain was in American politics. That hypothetical given to us by scripture -- gaining the whole world but losing one's soul -- for McCain it was a real choice.

You've probably seen the clip already this week. In a 2008 campaign townhall, two McCain supporters took the microphone to tell their candidate how afraid they were of Obama.

McCain called the future president a decent person whom voters should not fear.

The audience booed him.

The second audience member told McCain she didn't trust Obama because "he's an Arab."

"No, ma'am," McCain said. "He's a decent family man, a citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about."

McCain had a choice before him -- to incite fear among his core supporters and possibly win, or to be truthful and possibly lose.

Integrity comes at a cost, and it cost few people so much as it did McCain.

Long before that townhall, he faced another decision -- whether to be released as a public relations ploy by the North Vietnamese or to wait his turn after all prisoners of war captured before him. He spent four years in solitary confinement, frequently tortured, with poorly treated, debilitating injuries that could have killed him, but he endured it with an inexhaustible fortitude.

He didn't relent. He didn't take shortcuts. He did things the right way.

Before he died, McCain asked the two men who kept him from the presidency -- Obama and George W. Bush -- to deliver eulogies at his funeral. He staged his last act to be a message to America -- a reminder of who we're supposed to be and a finger in the eye of those who would exploit our fear for personal benefit.

Maybe one day we'll look back and say, this was the moment our fever broke.

"We argue and compete and sometimes even vilify each other in our raucous public debates," McCain wrote in a farewell letter to America before his death. "But we have always had so much more in common with each other than in disagreement. If only we remember that and give each other the benefit of the presumption that we all love our country we will get through these challenging times."

Thank you. And Amen.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

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