Michele A. McGeachey

Michele Anne McGeachey died Monday February 16th at Gosnell Memorial Hospice House in Scarborough with many of her loving family close at hand. Born August 1st, 1959 in Portland, Michele was the youngest of 4 children. Her father, Edward J. McGeachey Jr., was a long-time administrator at Maine Medical Center and her mother, Yvette, was a nurse before leaving that profession to raise her family. Michele took great pride and amusement at having attended kindergarten through college all at schools on Stevens Avenue, just blocks from the familys Percival Street home. With her open, attentive, gregarious way of speaking, Michele could and would strike up a conversation with anyone. She loved learning about people, and seeing how a smile and a little kind conversation could bring out the best in them or change even the sourest mood. It was in her nature to collect and share what she called random, useless facts that inevitably made people smile or stop and think. Her interests and skills ranged far and wide, from the basics of home repair and amateur horticulture, to professional-level baking, knitting and sewing. Through years of intensive shopping in used book stores, she cultivated a library of thousands of books in every genre. She found the beauty hidden under beaten pieces of old furniture and restored them to glory, and plants that other gardeners tossed away as dead sticks flourished to life under her green thumb. Her greatest joy and fascination was always with her ever-growing family, and she kept herself going long enough to hold her newest grandson, born just five days before she died. She smiled and chatted her way through 5 years of difficult lung cancer treatment, sometimes with a baffling zen-like calm in the face of pain. She constantly surprised the health-care professionals she met with her seemingly boundless energy and fascination with what they did. Throughout much of her treatment she provided homemade baked goods to New England Cancer Specialists on her appointment days. She felt the need to pay forward the kindness and exemplary care she had from all the staff, and particularly from Doctor Daniel Hayes and Doctor Christian Thomas. Michele is predeceased by her parents, and her brother Robert McGeachey. She is survived by her loving husband Gregory Feeney; daughter Kara Miller and partner Joseph and her children Grace and Brody, daughter Marissa Myhaver Carney and her children Laura and Ivan, son Wesley Myhaver and wife Kate Herbert and their children Vera and Owen, and daughter Renee Myhaver; her siblings Edward J. McGeachey III and his wife Shirley, Roberts wife Coleen, and Margaret and her husband Christopher Welch. In lieu of flowers, donations of baked goods may be made to the treatment center at New England Cancer Specialists whose care was always excellent and heartfelt, and monetary donations may be made to Gosnell Memorial Hospice House who looked after Michele and her family in her final days. At Micheles request, there will be none of that fuss made over her; no wake or funeral are planned. The family will hold a small celebration of her life for family and friends at a later date. Arrangements are under the direction of the Conroy-Tully Crawford Funeral Home, 172 State Street, Portland.