Condolence: Dear Friends of Rick,

Thank you for taking care of my son Rick and our brother all these years, and taking him into your hearts. We appreciate how Rick found peace and happiness through your compassion and friendship while he lived in Hawaii. We are so grateful that you welcomed him into your community and families.

With much love and gratitude,

The Garlinghouse family

Condolence: I miss seeing Rick in the church pew participating in our Sunday School class and worship service. I enjoyed talking with him and sharing with him his salad recipes for our pot luck lunches. Thank the Lord he is now at peace.
Aloha,
Loha Mulec
Pahoa, Hawaii

Condolence: To the family: I just thank out good Lord that I got to share in Rick's life and that he was part of our church family and that I got to see him before he went back to our Lord. Peace and comfort to you all, from our Lord Jesus Christ!
Aloha,
Pastor Clara
Hilo, Hawaii

Condolence: God reaches out to you with love, to assure you, with grace to uphold you, with compassion to comfort you. Praying the Lord's sweet presence is especially real to you today as He brings you the comfort that only He can give.
I just wanted you to know that in the last year of Rick's life he was attending our church in Opihikao regularly. He was an active participant in Bible Study and always a welcome face. He even brought food to our monthly pot luck. Rick's pickled beet salad was always a hit. When I visited him in the hospital he shared with Pia that he felt loved and was at peace.
Me Ke Aloha Pumehana
Nancy Lee Bowles
Kapoho, Hawaii

Condolence: Dear Mrs Garlinghouse, James and Thomas,
My sincere condolences at the death of your son/brother Rick. I met Rick a few years back through our mutual friend Pia and was immediately attracted to his intelligent mind and well-versed knowledge of most any subject that came up. We shared many interesting conversations and he constantly amazed me at his wealth of knowledge and well-rounded education. For the past year I have had the privilege of taking him shopping with me every Tuesday as his car was out of commission. This gave us an opportunity to grow close and share so many good stories, laughs and tears. I never pressed him for any personal information as to his reasons for having no contact with all of you and he never volunteered anything but at the same time he NEVER said anything bad about his family and did mention on more than one occasion how fond he was of his brothers. We had our regular stops...CVS, dump, supermarket, "watering hole" (most of us have no town water here but the county has stations where you can fill containers with drinking water free of charge). Rick had an insatiable appetite for books and at the dump there was a 2nd hand shop where people could donate used but good items like clothes, books dishes etc. Rick bought 4-5 books every week and would donate them back the following week. He was amazing!! No wonder he knew so much about everything! His taste in books was widely varied from classics like Ivanhoe to James Patterson thrillers to Biographies of celebrities like Martha Stewart. We both love to read and would often share books...especially Dean Koontz novels...which was a wonderful bond we developed. I will miss those Tuesday mornings. I will miss our friendship.
Last fall, knowing that I attended the tiny Congregational Church (United Church of Christ) here, Rick expressed an interest in attending services with me. I was glad to bring him and when I mentioned that before the worship service we had an adult Bible Study he decided to attend that as well. So I got to see him twice/week and he faithfully attended services with me for almost a year. As a Hawaiian church steeped in Hawaiian culture, he was enjoying the Hawaiian language hymns and the challenge of pronouncing the language. He was warmly received by the congregation and repeatedly said how nice everyone was to him...he felt comfortable and eventually at home there.
I will be adding condolences from 3 of our church members who asked me to post them for them.
Please know that Rick had many friends here who cared a great deal for him, helped him, visited him when he was sick and were there for him. I wish you all the peace of knowing that he was loved by many and that he knew God loved him too. Aloha, Richard Solomon