Veteran's Day

Keith loved having his birthday on Veteran's day. He loved telling people that kids get the day off to celebrate his birthday.

I consider myself a veteran this year. A veteran of grief and loss. But I am also glad for the opportunity to celebrate Keith's birthday and his life today. It is something we can do whenever we think of Him.

And you thought his middle name was bad!

We were very glad when Lucy was a girl. We had no idea what name we would give her had she been a boy.

I recently asked my Mom why Keith had the name Keith. When I say recently, I just got off the phone with her. Her answer: Because it went well With Bertram.

My Grandpa (My Mom's Dad) was named Bertram Friedrichs. Everybody I knew called him Dad. Grandpa or Bert. Bertram's a mouthful. But wait until you get load of his middle name: Melchior! According to Catholic tradition, Melchior was one of the names of the 3 Wise Men.



The Bible doesn't indicate how many wise men their were but since their were 3 gifts, many traditions and portrayals of Jesus life depict 3.

My Grandpa Friedrichs died a few months after Keith got married. He was at the wedding and was around as his namesake started his own family.

I'm just glad that Bonnie was a girl or else my Mom may have wanted to name her something that goes with Melchior!

The International Impact of Keith Part IV

The first summer I lived in Russia Keith visited me for a few weeks. One day we were on a bus headed over to have a dinner at the house of 2 of my students. While on the bus we encountered someone having some difficulty communicating in Russian. It turns out he was a Brazilian missionary who had just gotten into the country. He spoke no English, and very little Russian. He was fluent in Portuguese and Spanish. I used to be a fair hand at Spanish but lost most of Enter Keith who was practically fluent in Spanish. We ended up inviting (I think my students were with us on the bus) him to join us at the dinner.

The dinner was a very unusual affair my student's Mom spoke no English, Spanish or Portuguese but was very interested in talking with the Brazilian. So here's what we did our host asked a question in Russian, I translated it into English, Keith translated it into Spanish. The Brazilian would respond and Keith would translate it into English and I would translate it into Russian. Talk about having to sing for your supper.

Keith really enjoyed being useful and a focal point of the evening.

You did this to me!

My friend Patrick, who I met through Keith had this remembrance he wanted to share . . .

I was friends with Keith in high school, and even referred him to a job a McDonalds. After high school, he went away to school and I was still in Elk Grove and kind of lost touch with him. Until one day I walked into the Elk Grove McDonalds we had both worked at and a voice started yelling at me from the grill area "There he is. That's him! it's all his fault!" It was Keith, yelling at me for getting him work there. I came back after he got off of work and we hung out a bit. Talked about Amy Grant music and other things. It was a good night.

Amy Remembers Keith Part II

Here is the second installment of my wife's memories of my brother . . .

Keith really looked up to his big brother Dave. Whenever Dave would tell a joke, Keith would chime in that he was thinking the same thing, or try to get in on the laughter. Keith was such a smart man, he had a brain for facts and figures and dates. He and Dave and their mother would often try to outdo each other with what they knew, but always in good fun. They would mistakenly ask me one of their questions, and after getting a blank stare, move on to someone they knew would answer…each other. Our family spent quite a bit of time with Keith’s family and you could always tell that Keith looked up to his big brother Dave, and with good reason.