A Place of Peace
Garden still widow's place of meditation, source of serenity
By Lucinda Ryan, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 08/04/2007 07:18:18 AM PDT


Kate Gong sits at the pool in her Asian style garden outside her Berkeley home. Gong, whose husband died four years ago of Lou Gehrig s disease, says the tranquil surroundings of the garden helped ease her suffering both before and after his death. (D. Ross Cameron - Staff)

MINNOWS WEAVE IN the still water of the small pond, keeping mosquitoes at bay. A light breeze stirs the Japanese maple tree and the soft rustling sounds of leaves join with the honeylike tones of the wind chimes.
It's easy to understand how this peaceful haven just outside the living room of Kate Gong's Berkeley home helped both her and her late husband find some peace during his years with Lou Gehrig's Disease. Saul Man Gong died four years ago, two days after his 69th birthday.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which the late New York Yankees star Lou Gehrig suffered from, is a progressive disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. When the motor neurons die, the brain loses the ability to initiate and control muscle movement. It can lead to total paralysis and difficulty with swallowing and breathing.

Kate says each day while he could still walk, Saul would go to the garden; when he was in a wheelchair, he maneuvered it to the door, which he would open so he could look at the garden. Later, when he didn't have the ability to operate thewheelchair, Kate moved his favorite chair to face the garden.

"He was aware that his death was near, yet, here in the room with the view of the pond, he was at peace with his dying," Kate says. "He would reflect on it longer as he became sicker. Seeing the garden and knowing how much it meant to my husband has helped me heal."

The garden soothed her husband's spirits by day, and at

night, after a full day of care taking, Kate found the garden a place to rail against God, to ask him why he did this to such a beautiful person.
She vented and wept, and then meditated among the whispering leaves and found acceptance.

"There would be a kind of resolution," she says. "I would end up saying, 'OK, that's how it was today.'"

Both Kate and Saul had been successful professionals; he was a medical doctor, she worked at the University of California, Berkeley, in the finance department.

They raised a son and daughter; the son is a family counselor and the daughter is a physician's assistant. The couple lived in the same house in the Berkeley hills for 40 years.

But the disease stole the couple's independence. Kate retired to take care of Saul. Still, there were sweet times amid the years.

"Though we grieved the loss of our independence, we also had the tenacity and determination to live as good a life as possible," Kate says.

Friends or family sometimes came along to help transport the wheelchair and do other practical tasks, the couple was able to travel to Hawaii, Alaska, Utah and Las Vegas.

One day at home, Saul, at a point in his illness when he no longer could raise his arms, asked her to come to the chair he was in, and get in front of him and turn her back and sit in his lap. Then he asked her to reach behind and take his arms and put them around her.

"He was never a touchy-feely man," Gong says.

"Through the illness, we had a bonding we had never had before. And it changed our whole way of looking at things. We had to ask people at church for help."

What she discovered is that people wanted to help. They volunteered, whether or not they were asked. They came to read Saul's favorite publications to him, they came to visit, they brought food.

One friend, after Saul's hands became functionless, offered to take him to his favorite Berkeley restuarant, where he spoonfed Saul.

These days, Kate keeps busy with service programs through her church and going to Habitat for Humanity building projects in such places as Thailand and Louisiana (post-Katrina). She takes ballroom dance lessons and writes for her church's publication.

It helps to stay busy. But she still needs a daily session in her garden.

"I enjoy looking down and seeing the water through the missing planks of the bridge," Gong says. "I purposely omitted planks in keeping with the Japanese inclination to find beauty in imperfection. Life isn't perfect," she smiles.


You can reach Lucinda Ryan at lryan@angnewspapers.com.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/bayarealiving/ci_6544276