Vale Diane

My friend Diane died unexpectedly, I didn't go to her funeral as she lives in the US & by the time I got there, it would have been too late. After being ill for many months, she was diagnosed with cancer 4 days before she died.

I first met Diane in 1998 when I went to Los Angeles to see Lord of the Dance, we stood in queues for hours waiting to see the troupes dance at tapings of tv shows and then all met out the front of each show and intermissions to scope out empty seats closer to the stage. We were part of a group called Flatheads made up of Lord of the Dance fans from all over the world who congregated at the original site's guestbook. She and her daughter made special ID tags for all of us to wear, which took them ages with our names and tiny unicorns on them. I met several wonderful people who have become like family to me, Diane was one of them.

Diane and her family drove me to Vegas for 3 days, we saw Troupe 3 dance each night, hit the strip and crammed as much fun as we could into those 3 days. Her husband & son slept in my room, so the 3 of us could continue with the girl talk about the dancers until early morning. She made sure I was introduced to those she knew and teased me about being shy, yet travelling across the world by myself. Most of our real life and phone convo's consisted of Huh? and Pardon? due to the different accents. heh.

We also went to the Star Trek themed casino and she laughed herself silly when someone thought I was the actress who played Kira Nerys in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and asked me for an autograph. Ever since then, she always called me Kira. She howled with laughter when the Klingon guys walked up behind me and didn't let on that they were there until one put his hand on my shoulder and growled something about evil humans. I must have jumped 10 ft in the air with fright, she thought it was hysterically funny.

We laughed at the tourists who held books up in front of naked statues outside Caesars palace and shrieked our heads off when we realised the guy next to us wasn't wearing a thick scarf but a Live snake. Diane introduced me to some disgusting concoction called a carpetbagger steak, it was her favourite food.


The last few years had been hard on her family, her husband was injured at work and had to retire, so Diane started freelance editing to help out financially, her daughter was injured while teaching dancing and developed CFS. She had trouble walking for a long time, but thought it was due to her back & leg, although she was often in pain, she rarely complained. She wasn't bitter at going through hard times though and her emails were always positive and happy mostly. She was truly one of the nicest people I have ever known.

I miss her heaps.