Private Ceremony
Private burial
Rokaya Mahgoub Desai passed away peacefully on May 23, 2021 at St. Mary’s Hospital Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Rokaya was a kind, generous, elegant, brilliant and incredibly strong woman. She was a pioneer, coming to Canada from Egypt on her own in 1970, a physicist already, to study and become one of the first computer scientists to graduate from McGill University. She was a teacher and mentor, having inspired many minds at Cégep de Maisonneuve and Concordia University, as well as an avid explorer, having traveled and volunteered across the world. She was a mother, a wife, a sister, an aunt, a great-aunt and a friend, beloved by her beautiful and supportive family and her many, many caring friends. Let us keep her in our hearts and in our memories. Dear Rokaya, rest peacefully.
As expressions of sympathy, donations in the memory of Rokaya Mahgoub Desai to St.Mary’s Hospital Centre (https://stmaryshospitalfoundation.ca/donate-now/) or the Daughters for Life Foundation (https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/t/62562) would be appreciated by the family.
St. Mary’s Hospital Centre provided excellent cancer care for Rokaya for over 10 years and during her last days of her life. Daughters for Life provides scholarships for young women coming from the Middle East to pursue higher education in Canada and the U.S, mirroring Rokaya’s own journey to Canada.
