Keith Peeler

Keith died a couple weeks ago. Few people noticed when he died. The workers in the hospital, I’m sure, stopped for a moment, but then their busy night in the ER of one of the busiest hospitals in the Front Range quickly took over their thoughts and actions. The rest of us were all making our New Years Eve plans – and participating in such plans. Sadly, most people didn’t know Keith had died for several days.

Keith came into our lives a couple years ago when our church did an outreach of making 500 burritos and handing them out to homeless people in various spots around downtown. One couple, Lauren & Chris; quickly started up a relationship with Keith and his friend John. They worked with the coalition for the homeless to get Keith and John their social security numbers, identification, and even housing. The coalition helped with counseling and all kinds of services to help Keith and John get off the street and live an engaged life in the community.

Over the course of the last couple of years much has happened between Keith and John and Lauren and Chris and the coalition. The most noticeable has been everyone’s growth. Bouts of depression, slipping back into addictions, injuries from falls, and hospitalizations have all been the impetuous for people to engage with people in this journey of life. Chris doesn’t see homeless people in the same light he did 5 years ago and Lauren has learned how to love unconditionally and still maintain healthy boundaries. Everyone would say they are eternally different because of their journey with Keith. Lauren and Chris risked entering the life of a couple homeless men –and they don’t regret a minute of it.

Today we had Keith’s funeral at the church. Lauren & Chris, John, other friends, and workers from the coalition were all there. The workers at the coalition don’t often get to stop and mourn the loss of one of the homeless. Unfortunately, more times than not, a homeless person will die and very few people outside of the ER doctor and coroner ever stop to take notice. Each person has their own story; each is someone’s son/daughter, a friend, a sibling, an ex spouse. But most depart this physical world unnoticed.

Today we stopped to take notice for Keith and for all the others that come and go without being seen. People cried, laughed, and remembered what Keith has meant to them through the years. We told stories of about Keith, I spoke about the river of life that Christ offers us where we will no longer thirst, we ate lunch, and then we all went down to the river to release Keith’s physical body back to the earth. Water has meant a lot to Keith through out the years. Fishing, living near the Platte when he was homeless – good times and bad, the river has been a constant in his life. Now Keith is swimming all around in that eternal river of life. The rest of us walk away pondering the mystery of life and death and the engagement in our spiritual journey as we continue to walk physically here on earth.