Today, I am remembering Diane on the one-year anniversary of her passing. It doesn’t feel like it has been a year in many ways, as she really has lived on, in my thoughts, on an almost daily basis.
Diane was my aunt and godmother. I admired her from a very early age, as she, and my Uncle Rick, went to live and work in Kenya. Honestly, at the time, as a kid in the US, I didn’t know much about where they had gone to live, but I clearly remember my awe in imagining their life as I had in my bedroom a gift from them to my family, a wooden carved statue of a man, that I looked at often. At the time, I was still forming my own views on the world, and I looked up to Diane, especially in hearing about her international humanitarian work. Her life was a model for me of how I wanted to live and what I wanted to do.
Unfortunately, as I grew up, Diane and I lost close touch after she and my Uncle Rick divorced. Still, I struck out on a path similar to hers, living abroad, and working in organizations and companies in education and other areas to make the world a better place.
Fortunately, though, Diane and I reconnected when I moved, with my wife, to East Africa for work. We were first in Ethiopia, and I was curious about Kenya, knowing that Diane still lived there; for that reason and others, I took up a consulting position in Nairobi. Once in Nairobi, I re-connected with Diane and what was so remarkable was that re-meeting her, after almost thirty years, was like seeing an old friend. We had so much to talk about and in common. And, of course, Diane was so warm and was soon generously inviting me to her cottage for dinners and to meet her friends. She took me to the Muthaiga club, showed me the café at Karura Forest, and even took my aunt Karen and me to a place she liked in Lake Naivasha.
It was incredible to get the experience to see what her life had been like at the tail end of her time in East Africa, I also really appreciated hearing about her work. The stories she told me were impressive, not just in what she had done for others, but how she told them in an almost casual way, belying both how commonplace it had been in her work to encounter dangerous and tough situations and how humble she was in sharing that work.
It was bittersweet to me when she moved back to the US, as I was happy for her retirement plans of lots of travel, but sad that we had more recently reconnected and she was moving away. It was such a shock, and still is to me, that she got cancer, but I think in some ways it did bring us closer together again. I was fortunate enough to be there with her along with her friends and family near the end of her life. I will never forget how she remained upbeat and kind despite being so sick. This is another model for me of how I want to live and, someday, die; with a generosity and vivaciousness in spirit up until the end.
Today, on the one-year anniversary of Diane’s passing, it feels fitting that I am on a work trip in a line of work that she inspired me to go into. I am writing this tribute to Diane listening to jazz in a hotel room in the Dominican Republic, after a full day of working with colleagues on a program for smallholder farmers. Diane still lives on in my heart and I only hope I can continue to live like she did- to really seize life fully, to live in service of others, but not to forget to enjoy the good times with friends with some tea, cheese, and good wine. I shared a toast with my colleagues tonight to celebrate Diane and her memory and I hope some of you, her close friends, family, and former colleagues, that read this page, did as well.
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