Nick Tabor, Gaston Gazette. July 28, 2009
Placid Solari, abbot of Belmont Abbey Monastery, glanced at his watch as he stepped into the parking lot of Gaston Memorial Hospital on Sunday afternoon. It was 3:45.
He was visiting his friend Raymond Geyer, an 86-year-old monk of Belmont Abbey. Solari gave Geyer communion and they spoke about death — they knew Geyer’s heart couldn’t last much longer — but he expected to visit again Monday, and to see Geyer back at the monastery this week.
When he got to the monastery, hours later, the other monks told him Geyer had died of heart failure around 3:50 p.m.
“I thought that his life expectancy might be in terms of weeks rather than months, but not in terms of minutes,” Solari said. “It was not on my mind that he was, at that moment I was leaving, dying.”
Geyer’s heart problems made him weak during his last few weeks, but friends say they will remember his energy and friendliness most.
“He was one of those guys who just lived life,” said Jay Briody, president of Goodwill Publishers, who had Geyer as his first boss after college and later as his priest. “He’d roll up his sleeves and he’d be out there on a Saturday, helping the kids whitewash the walls or whatever they were doing.”
Geyer grew up in Lancaster, N.Y., the second of four children. He entered Belmont Abbey’s prep school in 1940. After becoming ordained as a priest and serving in several churches throughout the South, including St. Michael’s in Gastonia, he returned to Belmont Abbey as a monk.
He wore many hats while at Belmont: organist and choir director in the monastery, director of admissions for Belmont Abbey College, high school English teacher at the prep school.
Briody said Geyer’s interest and concern for other people dominated his personality.
“You just feel glad that you knew him. You were a part of his life, and you knew that,” Briody said.
Sometimes congregation members feel a barrier between themselves and clergymen, but Geyer broke down that barrier with humor, Briody said. “He wasn’t stuffy at all. And I think that was the thing that opened up other people to him,” Briody said.
Solari said no one expected Geyer to live much longer. He had a heart attack last fall, and he declined to have surgery to repair his heart.
“I think he figured he had accomplished what he needed to do,” Solari said.
Fellow monks say they thank God that Geyer maintained his energy up to the end, then died without suffering too much.
“He’s a very active person, and it would’ve been hard for him to be confined,” Neilson said. “So I say that it’s a blessing that God took him and he didn’t linger a long time.”
Geyer is survived by his younger brother Robert, who is a fellow monk at Belmont Abbey, and his younger sister Marie Canise, a Franciscan nun.
Belmont Abbey will host a reception of the body tonight at 7. and a burial service beginning at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. In lieu of flowers, the monastery requests donations to Belmont Abbey College or to St. Michael’s Catholic Church in Gastonia.
(Edited for style and content. For the original article please click here.)
