http://www.retinapodcast.com/equal-round-and-reactive/2018/11/27/in-memoriam-dr-joseph-maguire

Joe: Your brother Dave and I and your sister Mary Pat have known you our entire lives.  But it has taken a lifetime—too short a lifetime—to witness the never-ending growth in the goodness and depth and complexity of your character—a character already well-established before you were 20.

Joe loved stories, and I want to tell a few about him.  The final story will involve the poem on the laminated prayer card in your pew, so please have that ready.

Joey was the last of us to learn to waterski.  On his first try he fell trying to pull himself up. But then, instead of letting go, he held on to the rope hard and sunk under the water for at least 15 seconds.  Joe then performed his first great sight gag: the rope released, broke the water’s surface, and flung high in the air.  Eventually Joe broke the surface too and saw everyone in the boat doubled over howling in laughter.  And then we saw Joe’s characteristic motions: the head tilt, the brow drop, the pursed lips.And then he yelled, “THAT’S NOT FUNNY!!”

For once he was wrong. He was still too young to laugh at himself, but he was making us laugh. And no one holds on to a tow rope that long unless they are hardwired for tenacity.

We all know Joe was a great athlete, and in high school he used his athleticism and wits to hold his own against much bigger opponents.  But in his first season at Williams every opponent was bigger and more athletic than anyone he’d faced in high school, and no amount of tenacity or smarts would let him succeed if he kept to the status quo.  Of course he never said anything to us.

We were apart for the next semester, and the next time I saw him I wasn’t looking at my brother.  I was looking at Arnold Schwarzenegger with Joe’s afroed head on top.

I asked him how he did it.  He said he was tired of being pushed around; he realized he needed to become at least as big as his opponents, even if it meant spending 2-3 hours in the weight room every day. And that is what that stubborn, tenacious Irishman did.  He cranked it up an order of magnitude, put on 35 pounds of muscle, and started on the team for most of the next 3 years.

But Joe didn’t do that for himself or by himself.  He had made exceptional friendships his first season, and he wanted the entire crew—not just himself—to succeed and to have fun doing it. Great friends motivate and support each other, and these friends did. Joe would tell you the friendships started then—and cultivated and refreshed during many phone calls and reunions over the next 4 decades—far outweighed any individual achievement on the playing field or in the classroom.

Joe maintained friendships with a happy zeal that I find astounding.The Williams crew; the Avalon boro crew he worked with during summer breaks; his professional colleagues; his students.  He showed them all his particular discipline for loving what was good in life, and they loved life together.  His love for his wife Patty and his daughters Maeve and Bridget went far, far beyond that.

For someone with so many friends and such a gregarious, fun-loving personality, it may seem strange to hear that Joe was also intensely private.For a long time kept his cancer a secret, not only from his colleagues but from most of his immediate family.  That fact may sound strange, but when I found out about his cancer indirectly, I knew he must have a reason for his secrecy, and I sent him a note of support.  And this is what he wrote this back almost immediately:

You know, I just want to be normal and have fun.
I think people treat you differently in a way if you are ill; like you’re fragile.

I’m Hanging in
working
Concentrating on the discipline, not the disease.
Hey! I could be in Minnesota (-7 degrees!)

For Joe, life was always personal.  My daughter Aana has lived in Philadelphia for 8 years and became very close to Joe, Patty, Maeve and Bridget.  She sent Joe a beautiful note after I told her about his illness.  Instead of writing back or picking up the phone, Joe drove, unsolicited and unannounced, to her home in Philly, to reassure her that he was happy, well, and that he always would be.

I think that keeping his secret as long as he did made Joe’s life fuller.  I think during those years he felt he was getting triple points in every interaction with everyone he shared his life with.  And I think it made him a more compassionate and patient and loving husband, father, and friend.

Here’s where the poem comes in. A full year before I knew Joe was ill, my wife Katie and I and our kids were at Joe and Patty’s for dinner. Toward the end of the evening I somehow was talking about a Wordsworth passage I loved and had committed to memory.  It is on your card.  I want you to read it through quietly, and then we’ll restart the story.

That night, I started:

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass,
Of glory in the flower;

And Joe looked up, smiled, and picked up where I had left off. I wish you would read the rest out loud with me because it is something he would want us to do together, and I know it is something I cannot do alone:

We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

He read it with the greatest feeling and understanding. The best recitation I ever heard. 

And that is why I think my brother Joe was not sick a day in his life.

Thank you all for being a friend to Joe…and his family… and to each other.  God bless you all.

We are grief-stricken to report that Dr. Joseph Maguire finally fought his last battle on Saturday, November 24, with his daughters Maeve and Bridget at his side to the end. He was a beloved member of the Wills Eye Family.

A native Philadelphian, Joe was a scholar-athlete and class president at Nether Providence High School, a trajectory that continued on the football field and in the classroom at Williams College where he was imprinted for life as a loyal Eph. Joe graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and went on to Jefferson Medical College where he began his association with Ophthalmology, and Wills Eye Hospital. He served his internship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was named Intern of the Year at Methodist Hospital in Philadelphia. After completing both his residency and his retina fellowship at Wills, he went on to Moorfields Eye Hospital in London for additional training under the direction of Professor Alan Bird.

Returning to Wills on the Retina Service in 1990, Joe excelled as the consummate physician and surgeon, whose warmth was shared with countless patients very mutually over his high impact career. He authored many book chapters and articles in the peer-reviewed literature, and served as investigator and co-investigator on numerous clinical trials evaluating new therapies for age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and other retinal diseases. He was the PI at Wills for the renowned Age-Related Eye Disease Study, a signature trial funded through the National Eye Institute. He served as the editor of 5-Minute Consult in Ophthalmology, was a co-editor of the Yearbook of Ophthalmology and a reviewer for many journals. A fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Maguire was a sought-after lecturer and active member of the Retina Society, the American Society of Retina Specialists, the Ophthalmic Club of Philadelphia, the AAO, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Ophthalmology. He was a role model and mentor nonpareil to our medical students, residents and fellows with his ready wit, razor-sharp clinical acumen, wide-ranging fund of knowledge, and irrepressible joie de vivre.

Over his tenure at Wills, he helped train over 120 fellows. Their memories of Joe include:

"What a great guy. Some of my fondest memories from Wills were hanging out with Dr. Maguire eating burritos at El Fuego or Wawa subs in the surgery lounge and talking about life.”

"My memory of Joe is that of a real gentleman, leading by example of hard work and kindness. A real loss for all of us."

In addition to his beloved daughters, Dr. Maguire is survived by his brothers David, an anesthesiologist at Jefferson; Leo, an ophthalmologist at Mayo Clinic; sister Mary Patricia of Downingtown; and 17 nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his wife Patricia.

The funeral mass will be Friday, November 30th, at St. Anastasia’s in Newtown Square at 1:00 PM followed by a luncheon.  Memories can be shared at joseph-i-maguire.forevermissed.com.

Joe Maguire will be missed in every aspect of our lives at Wills. A loving and compassionate husband, father, physician, and friend, he touched us all with his sense of humor, dedication to our profession, integrity, and kindness. He has left a noble legacy that will always inspire us.