A FOND GOODBYE TO LADY DI

 

On January 29^th, 2023, a few minutes before 8 A.M. I awoke from a short and vivid dream about Diane Knorn.

In the dream, I saw Diane walking toward me.  I didn’t realize it until long after I awoke that, in the dream, we were in the hallway outside of her hospital room. (Specifically, as I was sitting in the waiting room with Jane ((Diane and Shirley’s friend from Arbys))  and Shirley while a nurse did final preps for Diane before the rest of the family arrived from Colorado.) The dream room was not identical to the hospital.  The reception desk was gone as was the wall between the hallway and that station.  The double doors into the waiting room were also absent.

Diane strolled up to me with a rolling skip to her step. Suddenly, we were both standing in the area next to the waiting room. The circle of lounge chairs was gone, but the floors were the same color, as were the walls and carpeted area.

Watching myself in the dream, I noticed that my back was humped over but I was not using a cane.  Then I observed that Diane’s purple winter jacket, with its small narrow accenting of pink and green colors, appeared as new as when she had pulled it off the rack a few years ago.  Diane, Shirley, and I had been shopping, I believe at Walmart, when Diane had purchased that jacket. Over time that jacket had become worn in the wearing. Diane was also wearing her dark brown imitation fur fashion cap that she had worn to the hospital, but it had transformed into the black Kiwi knitted cap. (Has a flightless Kiwi bird on it – another of her favorite hats!)

I began to weep and opened my arms to hug Diane. She returned a quick hug. At first, she gave me a concerned, puzzled look.  The gears were whirring, but she did not ask the obvious question.  I could see clearly what she was thinking, why are you crying?  It was then that I noticed that Diane was not wearing her spectacles.

As she peered up at me, her face beamed radiantly, and her dark green eyes sparkled.  With dramatic flair Diane pointed to what in real-life was the vending room next to the second floor waiting room of the hospital.  Rather than the real-life vending room, there was a magnificent view of polished mahogany café booths and tables under a backdrop of chrome and glass.  Several tiny nick-nack shops, each with their own creatively themed motif, were interspersed among the café rooms that sprawled beneath a beautiful escalator that topped out onto a magnificent and brightly illuminated, but otherwise empty, walk-around upper balcony.

Looking back and peering up at me, her face still radiant, and eyes dancing, Diane exclaimed, “My parents are coming and then we are all going out to eat!”

END OF DREAM

I woke up, called Shirley to let her know I was coming and to ask about Diane. Afterwards I hurriedly washed and changed clothes, grabbed a quick breakfast, and called the taxi.  They arrived in an amazing five minutes.

In record time I was on the first floor of Medford Hospital reaching for the elevator call button when my phone rang. As soon as it rang, without looking, I was certain who it was, and the sad news that would be announced.  Shirley had called to let me know that her sister Diane “had stopped breathing.”

While I had hoped to be there before her exit, I still am thankful that earlier in the week, during former visits, she had been upbeat and cheerful. Diane had even gifted me with a book, 101 Things No One Should Know How TO DO: Forbidden Knowledge.

I have placed a label inside the book that says, “Going Away Gift from Diane Knorn, January 19^th, 2023, Rest in Peace.”

I also have almost six years of fond memories, from watching movies, getting A Grain of Wheat books from the warehouse, as well as shopping and eating at various restaurants in Medford, Abbotsford, Eau Claire, Marshfield, Wausau and other places with her and Shirley.

One of my recent memories is of Diane and I both following Shirley around Walmart in a caravan of mobile handicap shopping carts.  We both followed a walking Shirley like a gaggle of geese. In the last few months, we have done this several times in more than one store in different cities!

Diane and Shirley, in a life of very few lady friends, have been the best friends I have ever had.

DIANE IN PURPLE JACKET AT BINTOPIA , ABBOTTSFORD WI, APRIL 2022

 

 

DIANE AT GOLDEN HARVEST IN MERRIAL WI BY THE DRAGON STATUE, July 1, 2022

DIANE BY HER FAVORITE DINOSAUR STATUE AT GOLDEN HARVEST.

DIANE WITH HER SISTER SHIRLEY AT ARBY’S 2021 BIRTHDAY PARTY WITH MARK AND WAYNE.

 

 

DIANE WITH HER SISTER A FEW MINUTES LATER AT OCT. 2021 ARBYS PARTY

 

 

 

DIANE WITH WAYNE AND SHIRLEY AT MEDFORD LAUNDROMAT. JULY 2021.

 

 

 

 

Diane in her wheelchair, outside my house, on her sister’s birthday, October 31st, 2022, wearing her cowgirl hat. She will be sadly missed in the Friendship Tower.

 

 

 

 

When Diane and Shirley started working for me, I was shipping David Dyer’s books from the store. But later I moved the business to a house about five blocks away. That is where I now reside. I have lived at the house for about four years or so now.

Diane Louise Knorn – Central Wisconsin News (centralwinews.com)