thank you so much for outpouring of love and condolences. we are so grateful to be surrounded by family and community as we grieve the loss of Peter.

Peter has family and friends all over the world. We hope this page creates a space to share stories, photos, memories of Peter's life and the many people he influenced and interacted throughout his life. We welcome your honesty - we know Peter's shenanigans and wild, free nature is what made his whirlwind of a life so beautiful and layered.

We plan to celebrate Peter's life in 2023 . Details pending. If you click on the Event tab of this page, you can subscribe to this site and receive details of the event as they unfold.

With love and appreciation, Kirstin

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From Audrey:

My son Peter died on April 9, 2022. This may be one of the most difficult things I have ever written.

One month ago, we celebrated his 43rd birthday. For this mother, the 43 years were uniquely beautiful , challenging, and love-filled. I remember always laughing with Peter as he grew up. An event that stands out in my mind was the ending of a Shawnee Mission East concert , where he and his friend Jon Hammond came to the front of the stage after all the other orchestra students had disappeared. They bowed several times to the audience, as if they were solely responsible for the entire concert. Peter played the violin, the guitar, and loved to sing.

Through his years, Peter loved science, reading, skateboarding, politics, scouting - he was an Eagle Scout……and so many other things. As a family, we hiked and camped and skied (Peter snowboarded). There were many trips to see families in Nova Scotia and Germany, where he was loved by cousins, aunts and uncles and grandmothers .

Peter was my junior horticulturalist and bug specialist. Every bug found in the house was immediately escorted to the outer world. As he grew older, he would offer to help me in the my garden. After 1/2 an hour, the work noises would stop and I would find him looking at bees and insects, sometimes with a magnifying glass. He loved my garden and often would just sit quietly for long periods of time, enveloped in the busy world of birds, animals and insects. This quiet time is one of my best memories, even in recent years.

The world was not always an easy place for Peter. I think his safest, softest place was in nature, no matter the location. He was a veritable fish in any body of water. He kept us learning and seeing the world through a very different and often cosmic lens. It was not always a smooth ride, but his faith was strong.

I will miss him forever.

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On Tuesday, April 12, 2022, 04:40:18 PM CDT, Thomas Wiegmann <twiegmann@yahoo.com> wrote:

Peter,

There is a drawing that has been hanging over my desk since 1980. It shows part of a head, a foot and hand, visible from behind my back. That is you in my arms, that is my first and enduring memory of you, just after you had come into this world. You came in peace.

Forty-three years may be a sufficient time for many, and for you and me, it is, it was much too short. The box of memories is full of good stories. Always a tremendous appetite for novel experiences, even from the very start. So much so that as a baby you were endlessly persistent in your desire for more - to hear another story, see another tick-tock, play a bit longer with Legos, read another chapter of the book. You loved cats in the house, from the beginning. A love you kept to the end. You raised two furry friends for many years and they are looking for you around our house just now.

I remember you doing magic shows for your neighborhood and kindergarten friends. You learned how to read at a very young age and you were notably bright – maybe so bright that school could be boring at times. I remember you doing a science project that had you study how coke digested meat in a jar, almost as fast as acid. You loved science, but you were even more interested in planes, machines, arms, UFOs even. And, then history caught your interest along the way. Opinionated as all can be about just about everything. No wonder you wound up to study Political Science, a perfect fit.

You spent many years in scouting, advancing to Eagle Scout along the way. What fun it was to go camping with you. What great trips there were, summer as well as winter. Big challenges such as Philmont Scout Ranch backpacking for a week. You and your buddies with 50 lbs on the back running up the slopes while your elders were exhausted. You went on to college, from KU to Rockhurst. You were most intense in your interests, simultaneously intrigued by multiple topics, at times feeling that nothing was expansive enough.

There was not much work to be had to cover your interests. I am so proud of you that you were able to make a good showing of the work at the VA. A start in the science lab was followed by a much better fit with clinical research. A great challenge for you. You were coming to the point of running your own trial as a coordinator. It could not have been easy to have a fairly demanding lab director who then also turned out to be your father. I am so glad that you never held that against me. (Well, almost never!) But then you always liked being or working with people and this job was so much about that. Unexpectedly, you had a great interest and talent in computer programming and operating programs to analyze large data sets. Whenever I got stuck with errors in programming I had you to rescue me. Even better, this work allowed us to go to several science and medical meetings across the country, where we could show the results. It was a great opportunity to spend time with you, to go walking around places like Boston, Orlando or San Diego. Travel beyond, you loved the warm ocean, Cancun, Belize, Cabo. You liked it hot. I loved the adventures of getting around with you for weeks in India by plane, train, car and elephant, Who can forget boating on the Ganges at sunrise.

Oh how I wish there had been more time for us. The road never seemed easy for you, especially these last few years. And I believe, I must think, that at the end, that you left us, me, while asleep, and without pain. Godspeed my son, rest in peace