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Here is the eulogy I presented at his memorial service on Jan. 8: Back in September, we were sitting around the table after dinner, and the topic turned to music. Dad said he didn’t like where music was going. “Why not?” I asked. “No four-part harmony. It’s gone,” he said. I wonder what he’s thinking right now. I wonder if he’s pleased with the harmony in heaven. Because if what I imagine is really true, he is singing with the angels in that beautiful baritone that blessed so many people during his lifetime, and it’s a sound that’s impossible for us to ever imagine this side of heaven. We can’t conceive of the beauty in that tapestry of celestial voices. And I wonder if Dad might really be the lucky one. You often hear people describe their deceased loved ones by saying, “He’s watching over me now.” I don’t believe that. I believe that heaven is a place far removed from our mundane, chaotic earthly existence. I don’t think anyone there has a concept of what’s going on here, or any interest. As hard as it is to imagine, I don’t think Dad is sitting around with the angels, hashing out our President-elect’s Cabinet selections. He is face to face with God, and he is creating beautiful harmony with the angels. In this sense, heaven is an extension of his life here on earth, because music was a huge part of it. At age 15, he had some older friends who would drive him to the houses of others on Saturday nights. He’d learn music by singing from songbooks, and they tried to master four-part harmony. He continued until he was good enough to be the song leader at church. His first date with a spry young lady named Viola Stoltzfus was on a Sunday evening at a Hess Mennonite hymn sing. He was song leader while she sat in the audience. By the late 1950s, he joined the Heraldaires quartet and sang baritone. They took it very seriously. They wanted excellence, so they practiced every Thursday evening, rotating among the four houses. They became widely known for singing in churches and at weddings. They went as far as Indiana to glorify God with their voices, and they recorded two albums, the first of them in Harrisonburg, Virginia. After he and Mom moved to Garden Spot Village, he joined the Gap Male Chorus, which started 94 years ago with four men in a living room and grew to a group of 62 men. In a Lancaster New Era story, one of them called it a “band of brothers.” And Dad loved his brothers. He also sang in the Village Voices at Garden Spot Village and here in this church. He loved his brothers and sisters. Singing gave purpose to his life. How many people’s lives were changed as a result? How many people’s souls were lifted from overpowering heartache and pain? How many were so moved that they decided to accept Jesus Christ into their lives and live with a different purpose? We will never know. But he’s probably already met some of them in heaven. Richard C. Weber lived a life of humility and service to God in his 85 years. How does one encapsulate 85 years? I can’t. But I’m going to give you a brief look at the 59 I’ve been a part of. I’m going to take you back to 1962—to a dinner table in the Gap home of my Grandpa and Grandma Stoltzfus. The 5-year-old boy looked longingly at his dad and said, “Daddy, will my face look like yours when I get big?” My Grandpa laughed so hard he almost lost his dentures. My mom has told me that story so many times that I can recite the quote in unison with her as soon as she says, “Daddy.” I don’t know whether my face ended up looking like his, but I hope my character did. I hope I modeled the integrity and work ethic that earned him not just sales awards with Thomas Nelson Publishing and Concordia, but the respect and admiration of so many of his co-workers, and led to lifetime friendships. One of them is Robert Vance, who sent me a Facebook message: “Dick was a dear friend. We worked in harmony for Thomas Nelson Publishers for many years and spent many sales conferences together. It was always a pleasure to be around him. We have stayed in touch all these years through cards, letters, and e-mail. I shall miss him a lot. He was a Godly man, and I shall look forward to our reunion in the Lord's presence.” Dad was a good provider. We didn’t live in luxury, and I’m glad we didn’t. We had everything we needed. For a kid, it was pure bliss. Sis and I had our own field of dreams outside our Oak Avenue house. Along with our neighbor friends, we caught tadpoles in the creek, built forts in the woods and roamed free and unencumbered by the world’s problems. We stacked sleds and careened wildly down the hill when the street was closed due to heavy snow. He was a baseball coach, and I’d like to believe he was a very good one. In fact, I know he was. How? Well, Dad and Mr. Keith had to split up the Akron boys into two teams because the town had grown too large. They agreed that Mr. Keith would get his sons and Dad would get me, and they’d draft the rest of the teams from the available pool of players. Dad couldn’t have been very excited about that. The Keith boys were better than I was. But in the end, we won two straight eastern Lancaster County championships. To win that second one, we had to face a scary, fireballing Ephrata kid named Jeff Witmer. Dad came up with a game plan to give us a better chance of making contact: We would choke up an inch on our bats and shorten our swings. Or maybe that was just the strategy he gave to me. Maybe everybody else was just swinging away. 48 years later, I can’t be sure. But here’s what happened: I did just what he told us—or me—to do. I was so far ahead of Witmer’s fastball that I lashed a two-run double into left-center field, driving in what turned out to be the winning run. A few years ago, after Dad got out of hospice in what the doctor termed a “miracle,” we were reminiscing about a lot of things. He and mom pulled out an Ephrata Review article about that game. He didn’t say much, but I could tell he was proud of me. Dad didn’t give me a lot of attaboys. Like a lot of dads in the 1950s and 1960s, he stayed far away from the touchy-feely stuff. He was the epitome of the strong, silent type. Mom and I were reminiscing a few days ago and she told me that she frequently had trouble cracking his exterior and knowing what he was truly feeling. “Drove me crazy sometimes,” she said, laughing. In my teens, here’s what I remember him saying to me: “You gotta get aggressive. Gotta get aggressive.” I don’t think he was referring to my rather tepid relationship with girls, although that would have been good advice. No, I think it was more related to sports. He bought me a barbell set and I’d hoist those things in the basement in a bid to transform my slender body into a fighting machine. “You gotta get aggressive. Gotta get aggressive.” … And I did—although I’m pretty sure my decision to move to Australia in 1987 was not what he or my mom had in mind. I gave up a union newspaper job in Stockton, California, packed a big army duffle bag so tightly that I could barely zip it up, and headed Down Under. I don’t remember any admonishment from him. I think he knew that I had lived in conformity for far too long, that I had an adventurer’s heart that had to be satisfied, that there would be life lessons along the way. When my three years of adventures were over and I got back to the U.S., he said, “Ah, return of the prodigal son.” He didn’t kill the fattened calf for me, but he and my mom celebrated with a party, if for no other reason than I was still alive. He and mom both allowed me and Sis to make our own decisions and learn from our mistakes, without overbearing parenting. I really appreciate that about them. I know I must have disappointed Dad tremendously by not making Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior during my teenage years. But I know he was happy when I finally did that in 1999, crushed by the weight of my divorce and in need of God’s brilliant light amid unspeakable darkness. And I know Dad’s waiting for me in heaven. In Psalm 127, it says, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.” The whole idea, I believe, is that a father points them, like arrows, toward God’s goals and then lets them go. And I believe that Dad did that. The prophet Malachi rebuked the people and the priests for neglecting the worship of God and failing to live according to God’s will. The priests had become stumbling blocks instead of spiritual leaders. In essence, God was having a problem finding a kingdom man. Tony Evans says a kingdom man is “a man who has learned to live under the rule of God.” And I believe Dad was that. We started with angels, and we will finish with angels. Dad loved stories about angels. He subscribed to the Guidepost Angels’ book and drew strength from the stories. Two years ago, while in hospice at Garden Spot Village, he had a visit from an angel. A human angel. He had never seen her before, but she seemed to know his precise needs. She held his hand and prayed. Then she disappeared, and he never saw her again. After that, he felt significant improvement and started walking the halls. He wasn’t totally healed but he could go on with his life. He had hope. He bravely endured his illness, especially in the last two years when he had to abandon his singing with the Gap Men’s Chorus and Village Voices. He loved taking bread to Nolt’s pond down the road to feed the ducks. He fed them, and that fed his soul. In going through his desk last week, I came across two things. Taped to a shelf is a slip of paper with Psalm 91:11-12 and a drawing of an angel: “For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone." Just below that, on his desk, I found a little card that read, “May God grant you always … a sunbeam to warm you, a moonbeam to charm you, a sheltering angel so nothing can harm you. Laughter to cheer you. Faithful friends near you. And whenever you pray, heaven to hear you.” He’s surrounded by angels now. He can’t tell us how magnificent it is. We’ll just have to wait.