Healing through humor: Local comedian steps back into the spotlight after husband’s tragic death

IDAHO FALLS — After the tragic and sudden death of her husband in 2023, local comedian Becky Keiser wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to tell a joke again.

“I didn’t feel like anything was funny,” Becky says.

Now, two and a half years since her husband died as the passenger in a horrific drunk driving accident, Keiser says she’s ready to “get back on the horse.”

The meeting

After attending college in the ’90s, Becky worked for a buyer’s club, calling potential customers to convince them to join.

One of her first phone calls was to Dennis Keiser, an Idaho Falls man who had been attending Purdue University in Indiana. Becky invited him to a lecture on the buyer’s club, but he didn’t show up.

Thankfully, Dennis called and rescheduled.

“I had six different people scheduled to come in that night, and you get paired with the first one that shows up. I told my boss, ‘I want to be paired with him!’ Because I knew he was single, I wanted to meet him, and I was interested in him,” says Becky. “(My boss) said, ‘I don’t care that you want to be paired with him, it’s whoever comes in first.’ And (Dennis) happened to come in first.”

After agreeing to be part of the club and asking Becky to help him order a pair of sunglasses, the rest was history. The two later got married and moved to Idaho Falls.

Once here, Becky decided she wanted to try something new – stand-up comedy.

“About 12 years ago, I thought maybe I’d like to do stand-up comedy. And within a month, I was opening at The Peppertree, and it went really well,” Becky says. “A lot of my friends came, and they laughed at everything.”

Soon, Becky was offered a recurring spot at BlackRock Fine Wine and Craft Beer to hone her craft and do what she enjoys most – making people laugh.

“I love being on a microphone and trying to make people laugh. I like attention,” Becky says. “(Dennis) enjoyed my comedy, he came to all of my shows, and he recorded all of my shows.”

The crash

On Dec. 9, 2023, the Keisers were at a Christmas Party for the YMCA, as Becky was on the board.

After the party, Dennis suggested their group of friends go to a bar to celebrate a bonus he had been given at work. Becky was unable to go with him, so he caught a ride with an acquaintance in his new white BMW.

RELATED | Two men who died in fatal crash in Idaho Falls have been identified

Around 3:30 a.m. the next morning, Dennis still wasn’t home, and Becky began to get worried. She texted him ‘Where are you?’ and received no response. At 5:30 a.m., she began calling his phone, to no answer.

Around eight in the morning, one of the Keisers’ friends offered to start driving around to look for Dennis and the man he was with. Becky agreed and started off to look on her own.

“I believe in God. In my head, as I was on the phone with my friend, I basically heard in my head to go to the Roadhouse,” says Becky. “And I thought that was strange, because Dennis didn’t like the Roadhouse, but I felt like God was telling me to go there.”

Looking around the Roadhouse Saloon parking lot, Becky found nothing.

What she didn’t know was that she had actually just driven right past the car, along with Dennis and the driver, without even knowing.

“If I had looked to my left when I was looking for cars, not where they would’ve gone, I would’ve seen it,” Becky says. “That’s why God was saying go to the Roadhouse.”

Around 12:30 p.m., Becky was driving home when she saw a crane.

“I took the ramp from I-15, and I saw a crane, and police cars,” Keiser says. “I thought, ‘You know, I’d better check out what this is, because I’m missing my husband.’ So I got out of the car and said (to an officer), ‘My husband is missing and was in a white BMW.’ And then I saw the white BMW crashed by the incline to the Grandview Bridge.”

Officers responded just after 12 p.m., after a jogger had been running underneath the Grandview Bridge and saw a car that had flown off the road, hit the guard rail, and gotten stuck on its side underneath the bridge.

“I knew he was dead,” Keiser says. “He was missing for almost twelve hours, and it was the first snowfall.”

According to police, Dennis and the man, identified as Julien Reilly, 39, of Idaho Falls, left the bar around 12:45 a.m. and crashed at 12:52 a.m. Dennis was the passenger, and Reilly was the driver.

“They went to The Samoa Club and played pool,” says Keiser. “The guy who drove was drunk. On the way home, they got onto Highway 20, and the driver had just gotten a new BMW, and he decided to go 100 miles per hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone.”

Alcohol and speed are believed to have been factors in the fatal crash, police said in a news release. Both Julian and Dennis were wearing seatbelts.

OBITUARY | Dennis Dale Keiser, Jr., Wood Funeral Home

“Get back on the horse.”

After her husband’s death, Becky stopped performing stand-up comedy, seeing her friends and family, and fell into a depression.

“Right away, I wouldn’t wear makeup. I would wear hoodies or his clothes. I just didn’t care, for a long time,” Becky says. “I remember the first week, I had to remind myself that I was still alive.”

Becky says that after a year, friends and family began asking about her plans and future in comedy. But she still didn’t feel “funny.”

“People would ask me, ‘When are you doing another show? ‘And I just said I don’t feel funny yet,” Becky says.

Over time, Becky said new jokes began popping into her head, and on Friday, April 10, she had her first stand-up show in over 2.5 years at BlackRock Fine Wine and Craft Beer.

The small venue was packed, and staff had to find even more seating to accommodate all of Becky’s friends, old and new, who came to support her.

As for when she knew it was the right time to start again, Becky says it’s simple – she didn’t.

“Everybody’s different. It may be five years for somebody, maybe 20 years, before they feel ready again. But grief is what you make it,” says Becky. “You make your own rules.”

Throughout the set, Becky made jokes about aging, her continued grief, and the things she didn’t realize she had to do after her husband died – like checking the oil in her car or changing the names on their credit cards. The laughs were loud and constant.

“There was a woman at that show, and her husband died less than a year ago, and she came up to me and said, ‘Now I know that I’m not alone,'” says Becky. “She totally understood and could relate to what I was saying and she was glad. She was glad that I said those things.”

For Becky, making her own rules is what led her back to her passion for comedy.

“One of my friends said she’d never go to the Samoa Club again because that’s where she would hang out with Dennis,” says Becky. “You’re making that rule yourself. You’re the one holding onto that, and that’s not what he would want you to do. So I try not to set rules for myself, saying, ‘I’ll never do this again because of Dennis.’ I’ll never do that.”