This is the 90th day since Diane’s death, and it falls on a date that assumed transcending importance in our life together, Veterans Day.
For 50 percent of our married years, my wife was a devoted nurse practitioner with the VA, and a fierce advocate for veterans.
One of her most brightly illumined legacies was the circuit of veterans’ patients she left when she was prematurely forced to retire last Dec. 31 because of the ugly ALS disease.
Inexorably, amyotrophic lateral sclereosis was enveloping her beautiful body but never her extraordinary mind or her enviable ability to communicate.
It is difficult but true to say that the 30 veterans she cared for at a time were more special than the entire cast of patients she lovingly nursed and coddled earlier in her life.
A dozen veterans proposed marriage to Diane. What further proof do you need of this mutual, multi-layered love affair?
Diane nurtured her veterans in various stages of deterioration the old-fashioned way, in their homes. Many of the gentlemen lived – a verb that almost is an exaggeration – in unimaginable environments that left enduring impressions on Diane’s nose as well as her other faculties.
Our colleague Bob Rosebrock, all-American champion of his fellow veterans, is not exaggerating when he describes the pathetic conditions under which numerous housed and unhoused veterans hobble or crawl, day to day.
As surely as if she had been waving a building-sized banner, Diane’s mission in life was to comfort the physically afflicted. Summoning more reserves of sensitivity, compassion and professionalism than I ever have seen combined in one person, Diane healed her patients whether they recovered or not.
Daily, until her last aware breath, Diane performed the identical wizardry at home on her husband. With a silent swirl of deftness bestowed on few, she created, an intimate broth of love and medicine that assured both of us of sui generis health – until she was forced to leave on Aug. 14.
