Jeffrey Weiss, a career journalist whose openness about his struggle with brain cancer resonated with readers of The Dallas Morning News, died Wednesday. He was 62.

Dale Weiss, his brother and only sibling, said he "passed away peacefully at 12 noon, surrounded by loving family" and listening to Pete Seeger sing "To My Old Brown Earth."

Dale, 59, saluted his brother's accomplishments as a man and as a journalist.

“He was able to take anything controversial, scientific or complicated and put it in terms we can all understand,” Dale said. “That was his gift. Whatever it was, he could make it understandable and interesting. He was a storyteller.”

His gift for storytelling extended even to a terminal diagnosis for brain cancer. As Weiss wrote in February: "Most people with my illness — glioblastoma — live less than a year and a half. That means my life has changed. So have the lives of my wife, my family and some of my friends. How can I help them do well when I'm gone?

“This writing and what I'm doing with my family are all accomplishments I've suddenly decided to aim for. How much planning for a future without me can I help my wife, Marni, with? What can I learn and write about that may help readers? If I'm headed out in a hurry, I've decided I want to go with some well-appreciated flashes before the end.

“I want to go out like fireworks.”

A typical moment of Jeffrey Weiss being himself, as he bade farewell to friends and co-workers at The Dallas Morning News in September 2017. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer)

Born in South Florida, where he graduated from high school, Weiss began his college years at elite Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, longing to be a physicist. “He was always a smart, smart kid,” Dale said. “But he went to Hopkins and got a C in calculus, so he said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be a physicist.’ Jeff was also very realistic.”

He finished his schooling at the University of Miami, where he studied journalism and philosophy. He began his career at the Miami Herald, where he worked for almost a decade. He started on the police beat, his brother said, "doing the overnight." He moved on to The News, joining the staff in 1988.

Near the end of his life, Weiss enjoyed "kibitzing" with friends and colleagues, wearing a hat that proclaimed in all capital letters: “CANCER SUCKS.”

He likened the meetings, jokingly, to the sessions a dying professor shared with author Mitch Albom in the bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie. Weiss compared himself to a modern-day Johnny Appleseed, hoping that what he shared about cancer might help others in the future.

"Jeff was a perpetual student who brought a sense of wonder to every story he covered, including the story of his own terminal illness," said Mike Wilson, editor of The News. "People will say he was brave, and he was, but more than anything he was curious. His fascination with just about everything was his greatest gift to his readers and to us.

“He was a good reporter and a good man and we'll miss him terribly.”

1 / 5Marni Weiss shaved the head of her husband, Jeffrey, as he prepared for the Optune experimental treatment at his home in Dallas in April 2017. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 2 / 5Jeffrey Weiss got a kiss from wife Marni during a trip to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas in February 2017. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 3 / 5Marni and Jeffrey Weiss at Baylor hospital in Dallas. In 2016, doctors located an egg-sized tumor known as a glioblastoma inside the skull of Jeffrey Weiss and surgically removed it.(Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 4 / 5Marni and Jeffrey Weiss with their dogs Forti and Sissi, photographed in their home in 2004 for a personal story Jeffrey was writing for the paper.(Allison V. Smith / Staff photographer) 5 / 5Jeffrey Weiss and his wife Marni, on the occasion of what they called their "first wedding" in May 1990. (They held a second ceremony later that year.) With them are Jeffrey's parents, Lenore and Sherburt Weiss.

In August, Weiss received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Religion News Association. Religion was one of several beats he covered during his tenure with The News. Others included education and energy.

Thomas Huang, an assistant managing editor at The News who worked closely with Weiss for years, called it "a privilege to work as Jeff's editor on his stories about his brain cancer battle. ... He wanted to be an investigative reporter on his own disease — looking at developments with a clear eye, without a lot of sentiment. As he wrote a while back, he was always trying to answer the question, 'So what?' — both in life and in his journalism."

Weiss carried his knowledge to Washington, where, in his words, he "took part in a presentation given to the staff of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. What happened there was an education for me. And may be some help for others tied to a sickness like mine."

His approach was no surprise to Randy Loftis, a former News reporter now teaching at the University of North Texas. Before working with him in Dallas, Loftis and Weiss shared an office at the Miami Herald, where "Jeff made an immediate impression as being a different kind of reporter. The most overwhelming thing about Jeff has always been his unbelievably broad intellectual curiosity. He just found nearly everything interesting."

1 / 6Jeffrey Weiss was fitted with an Optune device at his home in Dallas in April 2017 as part of his treatment for glioblastoma.(Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 2 / 6Jeffrey Weiss familiarizes himself with the Optune device he was using for treatment, as his wife Marni relaxes for a moment at their home in Dallas.(Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 3 / 6Jeffrey Weiss works in his office at his home in Dallas, as seen in a reflection of a framed press clipping on the wall in February 2017. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 4 / 6Jeffrey Weiss presents longtime friend and co-worker Mike Wilson, editor of The Dallas Morning News, with a tie Weiss hand-picked for him out of the reporter's extensive collection of neckwear, during a career tribute party for Weiss at The Dallas Morning News in March 2017. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 5 / 6Jeffrey Weiss displayed treatment apparatus on his head while receiving a North Texas Legends Award at the Press Club of Dallas' awards ceremony in June 2017 at The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas.(Jeffrey McWhorter / Special Contributor) 6 / 6A printer's tray holds press ID cards and other mementos from Jeffrey Weiss' career at his home in Dallas.(Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer)

Even cancer could not escape Weiss' curiosity. Friends and family members marvel at how positive he remained in the face of death. He even gave it a name. He explained to his brother that death was merely the next step in a new adventure, which he labeled "the Egress — with a capital E."

“At his core, he’s a scientist,” Dale said. “He’s even donating his body to science,” which gave the brothers an endless amount of shared laughter. “As he said to me just recently, imagine the medical student that will get my body, with all my conditions.”

During their younger years, their mother wished openly, Dale said, for Jeff to marry a nurse. Wife Marni is a registered nurse, whose "devotion to Jeff has been amazing. His life revolved around two things: his passion for journalism and his love for Marni and his family."

Dale blames his brother’s physical maladies on an autoimmune deficiency. “He’s had cancer two or three times. He had Crohn’s disease, so he ended up with a rebuilt colon. He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 30 and never complained.”

1 / 5Jeffrey Weiss took the plunge and went skydiving in 2004.(Jason Kesselring) 2 / 5Jeffrey Weiss (right), who was being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Religion News Association, celebrated with his brother Dale and Dale's wife Alison, on Sept. 9, 2017, in Nashville, Tenn. 3 / 5Jeffrey Weiss spends a brief emotional moment with his mother Lenore during Jeffrey's career tribute party at The Dallas Morning News in March, 2017. (Louis DeLuca / Staff Photographer) 4 / 5Jeffrey and Marni Weiss with Jeff's niece Lindsey during her graduation from Oklahoma University in May 2016. Lindsey is the daughter of Jeffrey's brother Dale Weiss. 5 / 5Jeffrey Weiss at The Dallas Morning News, approximately 1997.

But emotionally, spiritually, no problem. "He was passionate about so many things," Dale said. His interests ranged from Marvel Comics to Harry Potter to the music of Pete Seeger, whom he profiled in The News 12 years ago.

Long ago, Dale took note of "how strong Jeff was, and he was not a strong guy. He could not throw a ball and had no hand-eye coordination. And yet, he was the strongest person I ever met. He taught me that strength is not defined by how much you can lift but by how much you can carry.”

Weiss’ survivors include his wife, his brother, and their mother, Lenore Weiss, 93, who lives in Dallas, as well as Dale’s wife, Alison, and their children, Lindsey and Daniel. The family is planning a private service.