Missy Gartner

In 1987, the summer after I turned 13, Uncle Gary and Aunt Susie took me on a road trip to Pecos, New Mexico. It was my first experience of traveling slow across the country, looking out the window and soaking in the beautiful new topographies that have transfixed me ever since. We listened to Wham and Elton John and The Manhattan Transfer, swinging all the way to the dude ranch. When we got there, we fished in the beautiful rushing creek and I rode horses through the mountain trails. I met Gary and Susie’s New Mexico friends (a mish-mash of people of all ages and backgrounds) and as we shared breakfasts, lunches and dinners as a group together I got an insight into my uncle and aunt through a completely novel lens, via a found family of ‘strangers’. I put that word in quotes because Gary really never met a stranger—his heart and mind were eternally open— and this was my first real-world experience of consciously witnessing it firsthand.

I remember when they dropped me off at home Uncle Gary had a serene smile as he watched me joyously bound inside from the car, excited to share stories about my week's adventure in rustic New Mexico. Gary and Susie changed my life forever and for the immense better when they included me on that trip, to one of THEIR special places. Words really aren’t enough to describe how much Gary has meant to me, and to so many others because of his generosity of his time and his spirit. Some people in your life are ineffably good, and you hope to have in yourself even just a smidgen of their character - for me, this is my Uncle Gary.