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Margaret Mary Geib
Rest in Peace
(1941 - 1996)

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"Peace, peace! she is not dead, she doth not sleep!
She hath awaken from the dream of life!"

Percy Bysshe Shelley
slightly altered

"Be of good cheer and say
that you are burying my body only."
Socrates, to his followers at his execution.

"Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate death."
Walt Whitman
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

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from the Los Angeles Times
November 4, 1996

OBITUARY

Geib, Margaret Mary, born Margaret Mary Gibbons on March 13, 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio, died at her home in Newport Beach on October 31, 1996 surrounded, lovingly, by her family and friends. "Maggie's" immediate family include her husband, Dick; two sons, Richard and Tom; a daughter, Katie; two brothers, Austin and Tim; and a sister, Kitty. Family and friends will greatly miss Maggie's love, laughter and counsel.

    A graduate of Holy Names High School and Holy Names College in Oakland (with time out for six months as a postulant at the Immaculate Heart Novitiate in Montecito), Maggie earned a California teaching credential and taught in the Oakland schools prior to her marriage in 1965. After raising her children, Maggie earned a doctorate in hypnotherapy and pursued this interest clinically and academically for a number of years. She also became intensely involved with "Continuum," a practice devoted to conscious awareness and spirituality.

    Maggie's numerous community activities included several years of work as an officer and board member of "Parents Who Care," an organization formed to combat high school drug use. Maggie took particular satisfaction in the activities of this group during the year she served as chairperson.

    Maggie was a gifted athlete. She won volleyball and tennis awards as a young woman; later in life, she took home trophies for her age group awarded in community 10km road races.

    During the last years of her life, Maggie traveled extensively. She and selected friends visited India (twice), Bali, Borneo, and Egypt; she visited Ireland, France, Austria and Mexico with her husband. These travels say much about the person she had become: energetic and endlessly curious, spiritually questing, eclectic in her interests, and sensitive to the interests and needs of people everywhere.

    A Vigil will be held in Maggie's honor at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, November 3 at Our Lady Queen of Angels Church, 2046 Mar Vista Drive, Newport Beach, followed by a Funeral Mass at this same location at 11 a.m. on Monday, November 4. There will be a reception at the Geib home immediately following the funeral. Maggie's remains will be buried at Pacific View Memorial Park in Newport Beach. The family asks that donations be made in lieu of flowers and be sent to Hoag Hospital Foundation Cancer Center, POP Box 6100, Newport Beach, CA, 92658.

The last letter
My mother wrote this extemporaneous letter to me a couple of months before she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. However, the deadly tumors were almost certainly already growing inside her at the time of writing.

ON MY MOTHER'S DEATH
What my mother taught me in her death.

MAGGIE GEIB GOODBYE VIDEO
The images say it all.

THE MAGGIE INTERLUDES, 1992-1995
In her own words.

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Dying from cancer, my mother used to read the following passage every day.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you;
When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned,
And the flame shall not consume you.
You are precious in my eyes, and honored.
And I love you.

Isaiah 43:1-2

My mother enjoying every moment shortly before she died.

"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
Genesis 19

 

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"I'm really scared."

"Death is not the end of life, in my opinion. It is the fulfillment of a life."

"i am in desperate need of some help."

"sometimes i just think it is very, very unfair...
can you give me some tips ???"

 

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"To One Shortly to Die"
by Walt Whitman

"...there is nothing to be commiserated,
I do not commiserate, I congratulate you."

Prayer at Compline
from "The Book of Common Prayer"
According to the use of The Episcopal Church

"Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary,
bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted..."

"A Prayer That Will Be Answered"
by Anna Kamienska

"Lord let me suffer much / and then die.
Let me walk through silence / and leave nothing behind not even fear..."

Benjamim Franklin to Elizabeth Hubbart

"It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead..."

"To Whoever is Reading Me"
by Jorge Luis Borges

"...you will enter the darkness that awaits you, / doomed to the limits of your traveled time."

"Weep Not Beloved Friends"
by William Wordsworth

"Weep not, beloved Friends! nor let the air / For me with sighs be troubled."

"The Wish to be Generous"
by Wendell Berry

"...my life a patient willing descent into the grass."

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