GOODBYE DIANE

As I looked at the calendar today, I realized it is the one-year anniversary of the death of a very good friend and former co-worker. She was a beautiful young woman -- too young to die. Last year I was unable to attend her funeral, however, I wrote this little piece for her sister Carin and their wonderful family. Carin had asked us to remember the laughter and humor of knowing Diane. These were some of my memories. A portion of this was read at her funeral service.

My tribute to a beautiful little spirit...

GOODBYE DIANE

Perhaps one would have to know Diane and me really well to understand what I am about to relate; to know our backgrounds and the parallels therein. A few incidences, about which I will not go into detail, are our relationships with the men in our lives, and the dealings she and I both had at one time with IRS. I will say that the latter really turned out to be beneficial to each of us in the long run. The following events will remain in my memory as long as my memory continues to serve me!

When I started to work at Horn-Chandler-Thomas, Inc. in early 1995, Diane and I had both been through more than our share of rough years, however, she was already way ahead of me in putting the past behind her, and paving the road to success in front of her. From time to time, though, we would play “woe is me” with each other. 

I remember the time I came to work upset because I had seen a small snake in my bathroom. My little dog Fancy chased the snake under the bathtub – an old fashion claw foot tub, and I assumed the snake got out the same way it got in. Perhaps through a hole around a water pipe. (As it turned out, that was not the case…it went down my bathtub drain creating a monster plumbing problem!) As I was telling my “horror” story, I wondered why I was not getting the response I had expected. Carin sat at her desk with a slight grin on her face. Then Diane proceeded to tell me about the 4 foot long snake she had once discovered in her kitchen. (She never found out where it went!) Or the snake that dropped down on her as she was getting a sweatshirt off a shelf in her closet. Even today, that story raises goose bumps on me. 

Then she told me about the night she saw the snake stretched out on her windowsill as she was getting undressed for bed. Already unclothed except for her underpants, she quickly grabbed her cowboy boots and put them on, while picking up a short piece of 1X4 that she used to prop open the window. (She and I both were living in very rustic places.) By now the snake had dropped down onto the floor and Diane quickly pressed the end of the 1X4 behind its head. As the floor was carpeted, she couldn’t get enough pressure to kill the snake. Then she realized her predicament. What was she going to do now? 

You know, I don’t remember how she resolved that dilemma, but the picture in my mind of Diane naked except for cowboy boots and panties, bending over with a piece of wood holding down a snake in the middle of the night has caused me to laugh out loud many a time through the years. We laughed together that day, although I know it wasn’t funny when she was experiencing it.

As time passed, we shared more misadventures of our lives in the country. I complained about having squirrels get into my walls and attic. She countered with “How would you like to have skunks spraying under your house and keeping you awake nights?!” At one point, even her clothing had to be de-scented! 

I dealt with my squirrels and she dealt with the skunks the best we could. Then I had an influx of rats that must have been getting in where the squirrels did. One morning I reached under my kitchen sink without looking and tried to get the Windex to clean my glasses before leaving for work. Imagine my shock when I got bit by something! I screamed, Fancy started barking like crazy, and before I could get the broom, she had a large rat by the neck and was shaking it! I cried, wet my pants, and the rat died. As soon as I was able to speak, I called work to tell them I would be a little late. It turned out the rat bite didn’t break the skin, and the animal control officer told me to not worry about it. Everyone at work had a good laugh on me this time. I got busy and had my son help me seal places we thought the rodents were getting in.

Not to be outdone in the “misadventure department”, I believe it was that spring that Diane went out to her car one night with a long house robe on. As she walked back to her house from the drive, she was rushed by a skunk! It chased her, biting at her and catching the edge of her robe in its teeth. She yelled for a friend who had stopped by to come help her. As he rushed out the front door with a broom, the skunk ran in the front door and began spraying the house! They finally got the skunk out somehow. The end result was Diane had to take the painful series of rabies shots as the skunk was found to be rabid. Whoa! I had to agree that was much worse than my measly little rat bite.

Are you seeing a pattern here? However inadvertently, Diane was my teacher during those years. It was as though she were showing me, “If I can triumph over this, surely you can overcome your problems, too.” And hers were always bigger and worse somehow than what I had to deal with. It’s funny, though, that the smallest of creatures created the situations that caused each of us to give up on our country living and move on in life. The squirrels brought tiny little mites into the insulation of my walls and ceiling. They were impossible to get rid of in an affordable manner. As I was trying to decide what to do – and feeling like I was being eaten alive at times, Diane discovered that the country house she was living in and thinking of buying was infested with termites! I was outdone again!

During my final winter at the Barn, I became very ill. I really thought my time had come as I waited on the paramedics that night. I made all kinds of promises to God. When I was admitted to the hospital, the doctors thought I had pneumonia. Then an x-ray indicated a mass in one lung. I knew the moments when Carin and Diane and our group of Unity friends began to pray. I could feel – and at odd moments I thought I saw a physical presence in my room, and I was comforted. Two days later, a subsequent x-ray showed no mass at all.

When Carin emailed me this past December and said Diane had been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, my first thought was how our lives still seemed to parallel. However, it had been seven years since my hospitalization. I had gone on to sell my property and move out of state. Diane had bought a brand new home and moved on to greater professional success. We both seemed to be over the rough spots. What was going on now? 

As I waited one Sunday to hear results of Diane’s tests, I stood at my back door drinking coffee and staring at a small hawk sitting on the fence not 15 feet from my door. I have bird feeders in the back yard, and I was feeling somewhat badly that I had attracted this predator, endangering my smaller feathered friends. As the CD I had put on played the 5th, 6th, and 7th songs, I began to realize this hawk was there for a reason. He and I never lost eye contact, even as he turned around on the fence. I finally went to my native lore books on animals and birds and rediscovered that hawks are known as messengers. He had a message for me. By now, I knew I must check my email. Sure enough, I received the sad message that Diane’s diagnosis was not good. She had a mass in her lung, too. 

This little hawk had never been in my yard before. The days that followed his appearance were full of prayers and messages regarding Diane. Everyone was pulling for a complete recovery of this bright, talented, generous, warm, beautiful loving spirit. As she prepared to leave the hospital to go to her own home for a short while, I prepared to make the trek to see her, planning to stay and be of help to her and the family. I had put a note out for the mailman, packed my bags and put them by the door to be loaded into my car when the telephone rang. It was Carin. When she told me Diane had left us earlier that morning, I moaned and walked with the telephone in my hand to the back door. 

As Carin told me of Diane’s last day and her brief visit to her home, consoling me, and assuring me how close Diane was to us still, I looked out my back door and saw the hawk had returned. In a tree this time, but keeping watch the entire time Carin and I shared our grief over Diane. I told her I felt this beautiful bird was a messenger from Diane telling me “goodbye”..

~~~

I can picture you now, my little friend, riding your beautiful horse -- long, golden hair blowing in the wind -- in an endless field of wildflowers, forever young. I learned a lot from you; I hope you learned a little from me. So until our next meeting, maybe in another lifetime.. ”Goodbye, Diane”. Your time with us was much too short. Perhaps the next time, we will be comparing all the good things happening in our lives.

With much love,
Marilyn