From Marthann Cibel Secrist

The Cokinos family and the Cibel family became 'one' when Patsy & my brother, Anthony (Tony) got married on June 27th, 1959. We all came to love and adore Patsy. George & Bebe were an added bonus. I got to know them while Anthony & Patsy were living in Rockville and even better after they moved to Bethesda.

I consider Patsy my second sister. As for George, he was one of the nicest people I've ever known. After I lost my Dad, George told me he knew no one could ever take his place but he volunteered to do whatever he could - if I ever needed him. A true gentleman - always stood up when a female entered the room.

His humor was a bit on the kookie side - Phil & I were at the beach house with them & Patsy one summer years ago. The first morning we gathered for breakfast and what a breakfast! In front of George was a plate piled high with an amazing assortment of donuts. George picked up each and every one while licking and saying "I want them all, and this is the only way I can keep anyone else from eating them!"

He loved his home in Potomac and any given weekend you could find him outside chopping, cleaning up brush, or riding on one of his motorized 'farm' vehicles. He took pride in his homes. He could fix anything! Always puttering, painting, fixing this or that.

He had the most wonderful sense of family of almost any man I've ever known. They were always first in his thoughts and actions. Bebe was his life-long love. They were best friends as well . Whenever I was in any of their homes they made me feel as though I "belonged" there.

George lived life to the fullest. He was doing just what he wanted when he was so critically injured : with Bebe and Patsy - on the sea -tanned and looking about 30 years younger that he was.

He will be remembered by all of us as a wonderful, loving man - for a very, very long time.

From Pat Cibel

A Few of My Thoughts About Dad

There were the phone calls that would come out of the blue:

"Pat, would you do me a BIG favor....Please break it to your mother that I have

invited a few neighbors in for dinner."

Our many chats around the pool at Sunrise Condo were so revealing about his struggles through out life or successes and failures in business, and how proud he was of his Greek heritage. He had an ability to put things into perspective-to mend fences and to let go of past transgressions.

How will I ever be able to buy another car without him?

How lucky we all were to have him for so long. The legacy he leaves with his 11 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren will live on. His hard work ethics, his honesty,his kindness and love of family was instilled in all of us from the oldest to the youngest.

My last fun thought of Dad was on the ill fated cruise ship. We were enjoying our favorite Latin band when he said, "Let's practice the Cha-Cha." We went to a spot nearby and did our thing until he said, "I've got it now."

He never really lost it.

I will miss our times together.

I will miss his kindness, his generosity and most of all, his unspoken love which

I felt every day of my life.

Dad- you were indeed special. You made my world a better place.

Thanks for a lifetime of memories.

From Chryssa Cokinos Halley

Everyone in my grandfather’s life was part of his family and nothing was more important to my grandfather than family. However, my Grandfather had a special place in his heart for the grandkids. He had unlimited amounts of love for us. It wasn’t the kind of love that we could do no wrong. He wanted to teach us how to act and what was important in life. He did a lot of this teaching by telling us how to behave and what to do. My grandfather always had an answer for every question. However, he taught us more by the way he acted and the way he lived, when he thought we weren’t looking…

• When he thought we weren’t looking, he was calling on Christmas and pretending to be Santa and telling us stories while we sat in his lap in his favorite chair and we learned that little things are special things.

• When he thought we weren’t looking, he was playing football or paddleball with us at the beach or at home and we learned it was important to have fun also

• When he thought we weren’t looking, he had a daily flag hanging ceremony and we learned the importance of country

• When he thought we weren’t looking he took us for walks at the beach and we learned the importance of nature and good health

• When he thought we weren’t looking, he stole our food from our plates and we learned to eat with our elbows up

• When he thought we weren’t looking, he was telling my date to have me home 9 from the lifeguard ball and I learned that he cared

• When he thought we weren’t looking, we saw him be kind to a stranger and ask them to breakfast (my grandmother was always thrilled to have one more) and we learned to be kind to other people

• When he thought we weren’t looking, we saw him shining the wheels on the car, cleaning the deck or painting something and we learned it was important to take care of our belongings

• When he thought we weren’t looking, we saw him haggle over the price of a Christmas tree or a car and we learned the importance of money

• When he thought we weren’t looking, we saw him conducting business at a restaurant or bar and we learned that being in business took hard work

• When he thought we weren’t looking, we looked and wanted to say thanks for all the things we saw when he thought we weren’t looking

My grandfather was a special man, as everybody here knows, but for his having lived he made all of our lives better. I think I can speak for all of the grandkids and say I wanted to grow up and be just like my grandfather. I can only hope that I have made him proud.

From Maureen, our beach neighbor

photo by laric beckman

We used to check tentatively every spring for the arrival of your mom and dad to their beach house just in case something happened health wise to either of them over the winter months. But these last few years we began to take their return for granted. We will miss your dad terribly. Shadi and I have always felt we were treated like prized friends by your dad and relished in his passion for life, family, friends...and his ocean.


Shadi And I were deeply saddened to hear about George. We have come to expect that annual rite of passage to summer when we arrive at the beach house for the first time of the season to find you and George waving us over for happy hour-plus seeing all of the deck flags being raised.
(I'll never forget the time that the Greek flag was accidentally upside down, and Patsy said none of you wanted to tell to George.)

Words can not describe what you and George mean to us. We sincerely share your loss. In Shadi's words: George was one class act!

We will treasure every moment spent with him and look forward to keeping our collective memories of him alive in all our future gatherings.

From Michelle and Steve (cruise friends)

George was a great man who had the ability to make a positive impact on people in a very short time as he did with Michelle and I. That being said he touched and will be missed by more people than I can possibly imagine. Heaven is getting a great one.

While Michelle and I knew George for a very short time, we cherished that time. I have told the story several times about the great man from Greece that we met on our cruise. Every night on the cruise, we looked forward to seeing dapper George in the Concierge Room for what was sure to be great stories and laughs. We never once made a show on that cruise as we enjoyed George and his family more than any show could have provided.

Today we are grateful we had that time.
.

From Keagan Hall (grandson)

Keagan, now seven, never stops cutting up.
He knows he's the class clown, and his self imposed mission in life is to make people smile. I asked him... where do you get this from? Who - besides yourself- is the funniest person in our family?

Of course he said Papou.

From George A. Cokinos

George not only was my first cousin, he was also my godfather, my best man, and my daughter, Stephanie's godfather. But more than that, for me, he was the patriarch of our family, a role model, a mentor and a very dear friend. For years, Mary and I went to him often for advice on real estate, finance and other matters. He never turned us away. He gave of himself freely. He was someone I trusted completely. He never forgot me. Every year on my birthday George brought me a gift- even through my teen age years. And for a kid who grew up in the ghetto, this was a big deal. Something I will always cherish.
Above all, George believed in strong family ties. He was the patriarch of the family and kept us all together. He believed in the Greek culture that family is number one. He kept the traditions going right up to the end. George had what we Greeks call filotemo- the love and respect for family. He enjoyed having company whether it was at his home in Potomac or at the beach. When George heard that my wife, Mary's aunt was terminally ill, and that she was upset over this he phoned her and invited her to come to Florida and visit him this winter. That's the kind of person he was. When my father died, I was thirteen, and George was right there to support me and give me strength. He often visited our relatives in Greece, and they fought over him- which house he and Bebe were going to stay. George had to placate all of them in a diplomatic way. George Charles said my mother in law was a national treasure, and in my opinion, George, too, was a national treasure. He will be in my heart forever.