Keegan’s Crusade

Keegan’s life was tragically short, but in his last year he used his writing and drawing talents to create a series of comic books. Had he lived, his mother, Rosaleen Keegan Schmidt, said, “I always thought he would grow up and save the world in some way, because he was that extraordinary.”
Instead, it is his comic book character superhero, Captain Cheese, who is left to save the world — thanks to Keegan’s vivid imagination.
It is his family’s hope that the sale of Keegan’s comic books will help raise money for the Keegan Neill Foundation, which would assist other children with brain tumors and their families.
Keegan’s first fast-paced comic strips tell of how toxic waste spills on a piece of cheese down in Atlanta, where he was living before he passed away. The cheese is transformed into a living creature with super powers and immediately has to tackle the evil Mr. Mean Midget, who wants to destroy the world with his dastardly laser. . . . Who will triumph in the titanic struggle?
Mean Midget fires his laser at a suspiciously Empire State-like building, slicing it in two. Obviously, Captain Cheese vanquishes the evildoer in the end, but not before a terrific fight.
Although he lost his battle in the end, Keegan put up a terrific fight too, his family said.
Speaking on behalf of his sister, Keegan’s mother, Niall Farrell said that even in the midst of his illness, Keegan kept up his spirits.
“He had a great sense of humor,” Farrell said. “Even while he was sick, he was cracking jokes and trying to keep things up.”
Farrell saw his nephew at Christmas, shortly before he died.
“This type of cancer, no one has lived for more than two years,” he explained. “It is on the brain stem and it just spreads in all different directions. There is no hope.
“In the middle of his ordeal, there was a period of four to five months when he was like a normal kid. But he gained a lot of weight with the treatment.”
The brain tumor was called a brain stem glioma, often impossible to treat because of its position on the brain stem. It also grows rapidly.
Farrell said that the family hopes to raise money through Captain Cheese so that other families might be helped “financially and emotionally.”
“We want to help others, to give them an uplift and a boost if we can,” he continued. Ideally the comics will be printed and sold in hospitals, cancer hospices and bookstores.
“My sister is still trying to pick up the pieces, but she is strong,” Farrell said.
Another sister, Denise, agreed. “She’s a very tough person. The idea of this foundation [in Keegan’s memory] has kept her going,” she said. “She has done a lot of the paperwork to get the foundation started as a non-profit.”
She explained that their family was an especially close one with deep Irish ties. Their father was born in Kilkenny and their mother in Mayo, before both moved to the U.S. — later on, for 10 years, the family lived back in Kilkenny, before returning to the U.S.
Since Keegan’s diagnosis, the family rallied around him.
“There was a sliver of hope,” Denise explained. “But all the doctors agreed on the diagnosis. But this kid was unique. He had the wit of someone 10 years older. He was very intelligent, very articulate, he could talk readily to an adult about anything.”
One of Keegan’s teachers took his Captain Cheese drawings and formatted them on a computer. “He was over the moon when he was going through radiation,” Denise said.
She also paid tribute to their extended family. At a benefit in the New York area last year she said, even distant cousins showed incredible generosity to Keegan and his family.
Captain Cheese will soon be accessible at a web site that is being designed for the Keegan Neill Foundation. The address is www.keeganneillfoundation.org.