Sunita Goel's Obituary
Our beloved mother was born as Satya Vati Garga on September 30, 1929. She was the eldest of eight children in her own family and, when she married Satya Prakash Goel at the young age of 19, also the eldest amongst his siblings, she took the name Sunita Goel and became the matriarch of two families. She fulfilled the responsibilities of this role lovingly and with exemplary commitment throughout her life.Sunita helped her husband raise his young siblings before the couple started their own family with one daughter, Asha, and two sons, Ashish and Piyush. She also helped raise her granddaughters, Mansi and Neha, and grandson, Keshav.Sunita began her American journey at the age of 56, after a lifetime as a homemaker in India. She embraced the opportunities her new home presented her. She avidly made friends, as easily with her Russian or Chinese neighbors as with her grandchildren’s Armenian or Filipino schoolmates. She took classes to gain computer-literacy and English-proficiency, and her personal essays were published in several community newspapers. She was delighted by her school’s endorsement for her admission to the City College of San Francisco. These modern accomplishments augmented Sunita’s skills in traditional arts such as knitting, crocheting, tatting and more.Despite traveling across dozens of countries and adeptly weaving together several cultures and generations, Sunita always insisted that she was a simple woman. She was a woman of deep convictions and contradictions. She loved jewelry yet dressed plainly. She was both a traditionalist and a feminist. She was intensely loving and also demanding.Sunita taught her children and grandchildren to love family and value hard work, to be generous toward others and devout toward God. Her strong adventurous spirit has moved on to its next journey but her passing leaves a vast emptiness in our lives. We will always love her.In lieu of flowers, Sunita’s family would appreciate donations to the Memory and Aging program at UCSF:https://makeagift.ucsf.edu/site/SPageServer?pagename=A1_API_GeneralGivingForm&Primary=Neuroscience&ACode=B1871 (In Step 1 of the form, click the “Choose a designation” button and select “Memory and Aging Center (MAC).
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