Brett Kadish passed away on August 29, 2002. 

Beth Griffin sent these thoughts about Brett, August 29, 2005

Today is the third anniversary of Brett Kadish's death. His passing hit me hard. It was always easy to count Brett among my friends. From my perspective he seemed to befriend everyone. A few years after high school we got to be much better friends as we were both still living in Brookside. His optimism, enthusiasm and resourcefulness always made my days better. One of my favorite memories is from a bike ride out to the eastern end of patriots path and in the middle of it, somewhere behind the county jail farm, the crank shaft thingy on my bike fell apart. We might have had to walk for miles except that Brett put it back together with rocks and sticks! And it worked! Kicking around with Brett was great. We both loved music, art, the woods and outdoors and shared an affinity for Dismal Harmony in our backyard. For the last seven years I have been living in Burlington VT, and in the few years before he died, Brett and Magda would come up here for their summer vacation. His fateful trip out West was a departure from his usual summer plans to be in Vermont around Labor Day. Since his death, I can't help thinking that he should have been here that week.... instead of Death Valley. Our birthdays - Brett's is 9/8 - are back to back and we shared our 31st toasting each other at the midnight hour. We had mused earlier that we must be kindred spirits who intentionally reincarnated at the same time and place. I hope, if there is a next time, that I can time it so well again. I made it to the funeral. There was an overwhelming amount of people and it was strange seeing so many faces from Mendham when I was in no frame of mind to really want to, but I'm glad I did. My older of two sons always remembers Brett as "that guy who was like a clown" and while I share that sentiment I will always have much deeper and fonder memories too...

NEWSPAPER REPORT OF BRETT's PASSING

Authorities in California said that a Budd Lake resident who died on Thursday suffered from heat exhaustion after being lost in Death Valley on a hiking expedition.

Brett Jason Kadish, 32, was taken to a hospital in Nevada, where he died after being found in Death Valley, according to Scott Stell of the Inyo County Sheriff's Office in California.

Kadish was suffering from heat exhaustion when he was found.

No information on the exact cause of Kadish's death were available from the Clark County Coroner's Office in Nevada on Monday.

Death Valley is a 3.3 million-acre desert maintained by the National Park Service, a park service official said Monday. Temperatures reached 113 degrees the day Kadish was found. The park service and Inyo County police used an airplane and ground searches to find Kadish, the park official said.