The Healing Power of a Water Garden

I believe in the healing power of a water garden.

I write this on the eve of my father’s 77th birthday. Four years ago I moved him to the small town that I live in. He had always wanted to live in a country house with a fish pond with a babbling brook. Well like any good son I decided to make his wish come true. So three years ago I set out hand digging a pond and before you know it, the darn thing grew and grew into two ponds connected with a small creek. Wow it will be so grand when it is done. The problem was that I suffer from deep depression and PTSD. I got it into my head that if I finish the pond my father would die, I know that sounds silly and my therapist said it was an unreasonable thought. But with each passing day I neglected the pond in its many forms, nothing was right. To many seams it will not hold water, finally we ended up with a 150 foot hole in the back yard.

Finally during Christmas of this year it was decided to fill in the grand project and make a smaller pond. Holes got filled, rock got moved and lo and behold a small pond was born of a grand idea. The liner was put in and then the rock. Water poured in and not only did it fill, but it held water. The smile on my father’s face was payment enough for all of the work and then re-work that was done. Now it is spring, the pump is running, the water flows down a small creek and empties into the pond. It is finished, now my father sits on the deck for hours watching and looking at the pond. He was diagnosed with inoperable cancer this past January but none of this matters to him since he has his pond.

I believe in the healing power of a water garden.

Each morning we drink our coffee and relax to the sounds of running water. Each afternoon we have our tea and watch the birds drink and bathe in the small creek. The town’s birds now know where to go for some water or a bath. The smile on my father’s face could never be bought; it is made up of pure joy. He tells me often how he loves his pond and I can see that each and every day we sit on the deck.

I believe in the healing power of a water garden more and more. It has healed me in so many ways and for my father who has met his cancer with grace and dignity. I hope with all my heart I could have as much class as my father. We have built a mini wetlands in the back yard and no matter how he feels from chemotherapy he is always up to sitting by his pond where he communes with nature and god at the same time. This simple little pond and creek has healed us both.