He was kind. He was patient- he loved all his girls….. sisters, daughters,& nieces! He was an adventurous man….and HANDSOME!

He was beloved and he was a good man. God bless his family on this anniversary.

Richard,     and your family , forever impacted  myself, my kids , giving them the love of the outdoors and rooting them in hard work and play....  Of all things today my Daughter & Son are in Italy to hike in the Dolomites and Lake garda area....!   Forever grateful for having the privilege of having your family in our lives....   To hiking with you one day on the other side of paradise.... we love you... and to Barb - Seychelle & Erin....

Barbie and girls, I'm so sorry for your loss.  Richard was one of my favorite in-laws. He was so kind and loving. I enjoyed each and every time I was able to talk to him. He always had a kind word to say to me and Kayla.  I will miss his kind heart. May God bless y'all. 

Jan Haynes 

I am so sorry for your loss. Richard is of the best people I have ever met. A true gentleman.

So sorry that we no longer have Richard’s smiling face and great attitude toward life with us.  We miss having him at church choir but know he’s singing today!  RIP Richard

David and Connie Eldred

It is with love, friendship and joy that we remember Richard and celebrate his life. We are so thankful to have met the entire family. May God hold you in his arms and give you His peace, love and comfort. Geoff and Kathy

Such a beautiful man, who lived a beautiful life. God bless his beautiful family.  He shall be greatly missed.

No Brainer Party, Night before Richard's Neuro-DBS surgery

I learned what Richard professed to all his loved ones....That you can't always control what happens to you, but you can control your own reactions to those things. He was determined and relentless in his fight from the day he was diagnosed and given a dire prognosis for his Parkinson's, and immediately ditched the person who told him his quality of life was over that day 23 years ago. I had met him and became friends 25 years ago, and spent several hours per week working with him on functional activities and accompanying him to the Voice Project appointments (and sushi or Whataburger lunches) after that diagnosis. He worked harder in the gym to allay his symptoms, more diligently than anyone training for power-lifting competition.....chin-ups, pushups, and later functional movements like get-ups off the floor. All the while he was the most popular and inspirational person in the rec center, and his greeting and smile were ubiquitous. I became somewhat of a roadie to the rock star, and can't count the number of times I was asked to relay to him what an inspiration he was. At the same time, he was a tremendous inspiration to me personally, and whenever I thought I was having a bad day or week, I could look to Richard as someone who was dealing cheerfully with obstacles that I could not even imagine, and suddenly my own problems shrank to nearly nothing. I recall him wishing that his symptoms would go away less than a handful of times, otherwise he just accepted his challenges and rose magnanimously to meet them. I loved him like a brother, and I have awesome brothers. I'll miss him more than anyone I've ever known.

I found Richard adorable. I will miss the imp. I feel so sad to lose him.  I love his playfulness, sense of humor, love of wine, kindness & openness to both Gary & I in our divorce, I greatly admire his Love of music, knowledge of wine, love of a good dinner party, generosity,  barbecue steaks, his pzazaz, scintillating insights, giving me intimacy with Barb, Sey, & Eryn, housing & protecting me in our divorce , sexy juicy love of life and beauty. He is a hero charting his life course with love and courage. I have learned a lot from Richard about living well no matter what. I love him deeply and will miss him. I believe there are other beautiful lives in front of him with a better body. ”

A physicist’s  view.  For those who want a funeral or memorial service without any mention of spiritual matters, you may find this reading to be helpful. It comes from a transcript of a speech given by writer and performer Aaron Freeman on NPR News’ “All Things Considered.”

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died.

You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy is created in the universe and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every BTU of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid the energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point, you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off you like children, their ways forever changed by you.

And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue in the heat of our own lives.

And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy is still around.

According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone. You’re just less orderly. Amen.