Five years later, Remembering Edward Price, A Life of Curiosity, Growth, Love and Forward Motion:

Edward William Price Jr.

March 31, 1982 – August 25, 2021

Edward William Price Jr.—known affectionately to many of his friends simply as Eddie—was born on March 31, 1982, in Sandusky, Ohio, to Virginia Ann Price and Edward William Price Sr. He grew up alongside his older sister, Jeanie Marie Price, with whom he shared an especially close bond. His father, Edward William Price Sr., predeceased him.

To adequately describe Edward is difficult because he was one of those uncommon people who seemed to contain qualities that do not always occur together: intellect without arrogance, ambition without pretense, confidence without cruelty, and idealism firmly grounded in reality.

He was charismatic, adventurous, endlessly curious, and exceptionally intelligent. His smile was unmistakable—bright, infectious, and capable of changing the atmosphere of a room almost immediately. Those who knew him remember that Edward did not simply enter a room; somehow, the room became more alive because he was in it.

Edward studied psychology in Ohio, an interest that reflected something fundamental about him: he was fascinated by people, by why they behaved as they did, and by the deeper forces that shaped human lives.

Following his studies, Edward and his family relocated to sunny Sarasota, Florida. While interning and considering how he might best put his education and natural abilities to use professionally, Edward caught the attention of a premier sales firm whose leadership recognized in him an uncommon aptitude for high-level sales.

It was an environment in which Edward excelled almost instinctively. His work involved high-value products and services marketed to a sophisticated clientele drawn largely from the upper socioeconomic tier of the country. Yet what distinguished Edward was never simply his ability to sell.

He had a rare capacity to engage comfortably and authentically with people from virtually any background, including highly accomplished and discerning individuals. He understood people remarkably well, could read a room without appearing to do so, and possessed the confidence, intelligence, and interpersonal ease necessary to build genuine rapport where others might have struggled.

Yet no single profession could have adequately defined him.

Edward possessed the kind of mind that moved effortlessly between practical matters and philosophical ones. He could discuss psychology, economics, politics, history, human behavior, investing, culture, or the future of the country with equal enthusiasm. He was not interested merely in accumulating facts; he wanted to understand how things worked and, perhaps even more importantly, how they might work better.

He was an idealist in the finest sense of the word—not someone who viewed life through rose-colored glasses, but someone capable of recognizing the world as it was while remaining convinced that human beings could make it better. He cared deeply about the future, about the country he would leave to the next generation, and about ideas larger than himself.

A conversation with Edward could travel almost anywhere. He could hold his own among extraordinarily intelligent people, yet he never needed to be the smartest person in the room. He listened. He considered opposing views. He welcomed thoughtful disagreement. For all of his abilities, popularity, and natural charisma, humility remained one of his most defining qualities.

Underlying all of this was an unusually strong personal code. Edward had an instinctive respect for fairness, dignity, and the protection of those who found themselves at a disadvantage. He was the sort of man who noticed when someone was vulnerable, when something was wrong, or when another person needed someone willing to stand beside them—and he did not require an introduction, a friendship, or anything in return before deciding to help. There was something decidedly old-fashioned, in the best possible sense, about that part of him: a protective gentlemanliness, an aversion to bullying or intimidation, and an almost reflexive willingness to stand up for the person who could not easily stand up for themselves.

He was kind to people who needed kindness—and, remarkably, sometimes to people who had done very little to deserve it.

That does not mean Edward moved through life without the minor human flaws we all possess, nor should any meaningful remembrance of a human being suggest otherwise.

What distinguished him was his self-awareness and his consistent desire for growth on every level—his health, spirituality, financial well-being, investments and diversification, relationships, and his own personal development. That perpetual desire to grow, coupled with his action-oriented nature, surely stemmed from the same forward-thinking mind that characterized so much of who Edward was.

His study of psychology converged naturally with a mind already inclined toward introspection. When Edward believed some part of his life, his thinking, or his behavior was not taking him in the direction he wanted to go, he examined it. He adjusted. He learned. And he moved forward..

His compass was pointed toward improvement, but rarely improvement for its own sake alone. Edward thought about the larger consequences of the life he was building: what it meant for his family, his friends, the people around him, and eventually the generation that would follow him. He was continually reaching toward a better future—not merely for himself, but for those whose lives intersected with his own.

Edward's intellectual versatility extended into the financial markets. After developing an interest in investing and trading, he absorbed an enormous amount of information in a remarkably short period of time. His analytical ability, discipline, and instinct for recognizing patterns allowed him to become highly proficient and successful in an arena that many spend decades attempting to master. Those accomplishments mattered less to him for what they represented materially than for the independence and security they allowed him to create.

Because for all the things Edward could have become, all the industries he might have mastered, and all the directions his considerable abilities might have taken him, there was one role that ultimately eclipsed every other:

Father.

Long before his daughter was born—and even before he knew she was coming—Edward spoke with his closest friends about becoming a father someday. He spoke of his own father, Edward Price Sr. with tremendous affection and gratitude, recalling the experiences they shared and imagining, vividly and enthusiastically, creating those same kinds of memories with a child of his own.

Fatherhood was never an abstract milestone to Edward. It was something he genuinely longed for.

And then came Amelia.

From the moment Edward learned he would become the father of his first and only daughter, something settled into place. He had already established himself professionally and financially and had built a full and independent life, but Amelia gave every accomplishment a different purpose.

She became the center of his world.

Edward approached fatherhood with the same thoughtfulness he brought to everything else, only infinitely more tenderly. His background in psychology was not something he left in a classroom years earlier; he thought carefully about Amelia's development, her experiences, her happiness, and the woman she would someday become. Decisions were considered not simply according to what would make her happy in that particular moment, but according to what would be best for her over the course of her life.

Yet there was nothing clinical about the way he loved her.

He was fun-loving, affectionate, protective, devoted, and enormously proud. Amelia existed somewhere in his thoughts every day, even in those ordinary moments when a parent may not consciously realize that nearly every plan, hope, calculation, and dream has begun to include their child.

She was his everything.

Shortly before his unexpected passing, Edward had relocated to a beachfront condominium on Lido Key—an environment that seemed almost perfectly suited to him. A quiet, compact barrier island just off the coast of Sarasota, Lido Key is defined by natural beauty, tranquility, and extraordinary sunsets. Edward loved Florida's sunshine, the beach, the water, and the natural world, and there was something about the unhurried simplicity of life on a small key—the closeness to the elements, the serenity, the sand and sea just beyond his door—that resonated deeply with him.

There, surrounded by sand, sea, sunlight, and the quiet rhythm of the Gulf, those closest to him saw a man genuinely at peace.

And characteristically, Edward's enjoyment of that life was made infinitely more meaningful by sharing it with Amelia. She came to stay with him regularly, often on a weekly basis, and by that point in his life, the success he had built through investing and the financial markets afforded him the freedom to work from home and spend meaningful stretches of time with his daughter. He delighted in having her there, in bringing her into this little corner of the world that suited him so naturally, and in sharing with her the water, the beach, the sunsets, and long days in the sun, sand, and surf—the simple experiences from which a childhood's most enduring core memories are often made.

There is comfort for those who loved Edward in knowing that this final chapter of his life held something so fundamentally important to him: he was living in a place that brought him genuine peace, and he was able to experience and share that happiness with the person who meant more to him than anyone in the world.

Edward could have succeeded in nearly any field he chose. He was talented, ambitious, intellectually formidable, socially gifted, empathetic, loyal, adventurous, and possessed of a deeply rooted moral compass. Those descriptions are not offered to turn him into something larger in death than he was in life.

The truth is simpler.

Some people simply are larger than life.

Edward was one of them.

He stood out—not because he demanded attention, but because there was something unmistakable about him. His intelligence made people think. His humor made people laugh. His optimism could make possibilities seem closer. His loyalty made people feel protected. His kindness made people feel seen. And that unforgettable smile had a way of making the world seem, at least for a moment, considerably lighter.

Perhaps nowhere is Edward's legacy more beautifully visible than in Amelia.

She is unmistakably her father's daughter—a beautiful reflection of him in her own entirely individual way. She carries that same radiant, contagious smile, the kind capable of making another person smile almost involuntarily. She possesses a natural goodness and concern for others that those who knew Edward recognize immediately.

As she grows, she will discover more about the extraordinary man who adored her, and undoubtedly discover pieces of him within herself.

And through her, something essential about Edward remains.

His curiosity.

His compassion.

His courage.

His hope.

His remarkable capacity for love.

Fittingly, a coat of arms associated with the Price name bears a rampant lion upon a red shield and the Latin motto Vita brevis, gloria aeterna:

Life is brief; glory is eternal.

Few words could seem more fitting.

Edward's life was far too brief. But the measure of a life is not found solely in its length. It is found in what a person gave, what he awakened in others, the memories he created, the people made better by having known him, and the love that continues long after he is gone.

The world is a little brighter because Edward William Price Jr. was here.

And in Amelia—in that unmistakable smile, in the goodness already evident within her, and in all that she will become—a part of the man who loved her beyond measure continues forward.

Vita brevis, gloria aeterna.

Life is brief. Glory is eternal.