Gary Rice Obituary

So sad to see a Nutmeg Lane family member pass before their old age. My condolences to Mr. Rice, Connie, Joan, and Margaret.

Gary was my younger brother one year to the day. I loved sharing this day with him.
As a youngster Gary was low profile and private. Growing up in a small house with two older and two younger sisters was maybe the reason he retreated to books. He loved scouting and basketball. School seemed to come easy and he was always willing to help me out with my math homework. It was when he went to college that he really applied himself believing that if he studied hard he could create a life of his dreams. He lived alone at times and graduated summa cum laude from Northeastern. I have many fond memories of visiting him in Boston.
There would be no way you could keep up with him walking. He would walk as a crow flies from the harbor, crossing Boston Common, over Beacon Hill across Longfellow bridge through Kendal and Harvard Square and home in a flash and think nothing of it. He was lost as to how to get around when in a car often confusing his left and rights. He was so used to bushwacking his way from Boston to Alston to Cambridge and back the car seemed cumbersome to him.
And excerpt from an email decades later-
“ I did so much walking as a student and I always thought it was kind of cool to just be able to go places like that, without a car or a bus or a trolley. I felt free of the claims the world otherwise placed on me. And, I also loved reading how Keats and Wordsworth and their ilk would go for walks in England's lake country, covering several hundred miles over the course of a few weeks. For them, it was normal to tour the country on foot.”
Gary was generous and kind and I always knew if I needed him he would be there. As he said to me about our sister Cathy’s passing “matter is never created or destroyed, it only changes form, so too with the spirit, so too with Cathy. I feel that intensely.”
We will be together in spirit. As it seems to have always been.
Gary on Easter Sunday about 60 years ago. He loved a bow tie.

I fondly remember Gary along side me as our dad taught us how to maneuver a sailfish on lakes and ponds across New England. He so enjoyed sailing Merriwether on Narragansett Sound in later years. I´ll treasure the memories of sharing those trips.
Not just a fair-weather sailor or brother, Gary always reached out with words of comfort
and humble deeds when needed. He granted peace and stability to the family when my mother passed, answered my sister´s death request and shared wise counsel when I asked. Gary was an anchor in our family who will be missed dearly. I will think of him whenever the wind is at my back.

My sincere condolences Eileen and to your girls. May God give you comfort and peace through your grief and to cherish years of beautiful memories.
Nancy