MARIA GOMORI

Condolences & Memories (7 entries)

• Wonderful remembering Maria, her friendship, & her deep impact on my life. I met her when I first went to St Boniface Hospital Dept of Psychiatry in 1976. She rapidly became my colleague, mentor & friend. She was already a devotee & teacher of the family therapy concepts of Virginia Satir. I had just graduated from a Master’s degree in Family Therapy, She offered teaching & demonstrations in FT to a multidisciplinary group of staff, interns, residents. I was lucky to be a member of these groups, & she & I often co-conducted sessions of live FT for the students of all disciplines to observe. It was our shared goal to support them to include seeing families routinely in caring for psychiatric patients. We also co-founded a professional educational organization that brought in prominent edge-of-the-field FT teachers from the USA, people whose books we had read in our training. It was Maria’s dream that local practitioners could have easy access to the exciting leaders she was meeting while travelling to Satir conferences in the USA. She gave our community the gift of direct contact with the people she was learning from. It was invaluable to us, & I am so grateful that she had this broader world view that we should be able to learn locally from these advanced teachers. As years went by, our friendship grew along w our professional interests. She wrote a wonderful book, The Family Crucible that I was privileged to co-author. We would laugh in saying it was constituted of her thinking in Hungarian English transposed into my Canadian version of what she was saying. We spent many long months working intensively together on that. As Maria reached her late 90s & 100s, she underwent disabling health changes that meant we shared many more hours visiting in her suite, or managing w difficulty to get to a restaurant for lunch. She was always excited to meet & share together. It saddened her a lot when she became unable to fly to give Satir-based workshops in China, Taiwan, & Hong King. She loved going there until she was 100, & died at 102. There is no way to express what a full & fascinating person Maria was. I count her as the most remarkable person I ever met. Thank you, Maria, for all the richness you brought me! I love & will miss you always. Eleanor Adaskin - Posted by: Eleanor Adaskin (Close friend & colleague for 45 years in winnipeg) on: Dec 07, 2024

• Fondly thinking of Karen Fonseth and Gail Asper, O.C., O.M., L.L.D.. - Posted by: Philip (--) on: Dec 16, 2021

• When I met Maria at my first Satir workshop, I could see the light around her and only wanted to sit at her feet and learn. Over the next ten years, I was so fortunate to be with her, learning, learning, learning. Whether organizing workshops, facilitating them or just participating, every moment with Maria was life-giving to all around her. And she attracted so many wonderful people to work with her that being in her presence always meant loving connections, deep wisdom and a flowing creativity. She cannot be missed because her influence will always be shining out from those whose hearts she touched. She loved life and helped so many to come alive. - Posted by: Sherrill Ruckert (Student and former Vice-President of the Satir Professional Development Association of Manitoba) on: Dec 15, 2021

• Dear Andy, The pain you feel today, the heaviness in your chest, the lump in your throat will abate with the passage of time.....but you will never forget. Your Mom was a special extraordinary person who lived life to the fullest. Her contributions are amazing and she will be sadly missed. Much Love Faith and Marvin - Posted by: MARVIN SLUTCHUK (Friend and Colleague) on: Dec 12, 2021

• I only knew Maria for a short time but was glad to get to spend some quality time with her. She was an amazing woman and brought so much good to those around her. She will be greatly missed. My condolences to all of her family and friends. - Posted by: Maddy (Acquaintance ) on: Dec 11, 2021

• We have lost a precious gift in Maria. And yet in a way, she will never be lost to those of us who knew her, loved her, learned from her, and followed her path of sharing the teachings of Virginia Satir around the world. I met Maria at a workshop at the Haven, on Gabriola Island in 2000 and like many others, found it a life-changing experience. I had a dream that she was walking with me on a beach on Lake Laberge in the Yukon and when I told Maria about it she said, "get your calendar. We already know I am coming to the Yukon. It is just a question of when". Since then I have made it my mission to learn whatever I could from Maria, to emulate her gifted teaching and therapy work, and to teach others, as she did, as much as I humbly can. She was a tough teacher and had incredibly high standards. She was so sure of what she knew that when she gave me and others her blessing, we had the confidence to move ahead in our own work. I will miss her heated discussions about anything to do with family therapy, Virginia Satir, movies, politics, science and everything else. She was a voracious learner and I bet, wherever she is now, she is approaching the next life with curiosity, sparkling intelligence and enthusiasm. Goodbye for now, Maria. Safe journey. love and peace, Pat Bragg President, Satir Institute Society of the Yukon, Canada - Posted by: Patricia Bragg (friend) on: Dec 11, 2021

• Every psychotherapist who practised in Winnipeg throughout the years would know of Maria Gomori and her work. Although I left the city, she so often came to mind. We all benefitted from her vast knowledge of family therapy. gained directly from the foot of the "giant" Virginia Satir. With her passing, it is the end of an era, of the "Golden Years" of family work. - Posted by: Merika Graham Skirko (colleague) on: Dec 11, 2021