By 1971 my draft number, clearly, was borderline. Friends and family all thought that having to spend three years in the military was a bad break. 20/20 hindsight shows that being in Pershing's Own from 1972-75 was THE luckiest thing that ever happened in my life. Otherwise, i probably would never have met Diana.
In much the same way, had Winnie not moved to Reno she would never have restored contact with Tav and, shortly after, Diana.
Almost five years after Winnie and Diana had their reunion in Reno, Winnie moved to Carmel. Another six years later, Diana and i moved to Sunnyvale, where weekend visits to the Monterey peninsula were only about 90 miles each way.
For over a decade, we averaged one visit per weekend to Monterey or Carmel -- just for a change of scenery. Our favorite activity, often, before getting together with Winnie was a quick "mini-picnic" at our favorite vantage point in Pacific Grove, near Asilomar.
What made this spot special? Between two recycle bins was a gap a little wider than the width of our car, under the shade provided by two lush trees. We would back the car in between the cans so that the front windshield provided the perfect vantage to observe, from right-to-left, the current from the Monterey Bay as it ran into the current from the Pacific Ocean, from left-to-right.
You’d think that, in four decades of marriage, we’d have discussed almost every topic under the sun; even all the minutiae of burial details. After all, we did execute various power of attorney directives for health-related matters as well as “mutual destruction pacts.”
Only in those last few days of her life did i discover that Diana had anticipated even that deficiency in our discussions. When looking for insurance papers, i found a small stack of documents with a short, hand-written, cover note to me, paper-clipped to the front of the stack.
Her note began by asking that, once i read and took care of all details, to burn, shred or destroy it. Diana continued by stating that she knew we could never discuss the matter so she had researched and found what she thought was “the perfect means” of preventing even one dime from being buried or ending up in the hands of undertakers or morticians.
The documentation was a print-out of forms she had executed from the website of the University of California, San Francisco, for their program to donate one’s body to science. The note added that she wanted her “cremains” to be scattered, if possible, at our picnic spot at (as she and Ted Puffer called it shortly before my birth) “Pacific Grave.”
The only other request in the note was that, in lieu of flowers, Diana preferred people donate to any of their favorite charities, whatever they would otherwise spend on flowers.
Not quite a week after Diana’s death, when UCSF phoned to tell me that her death certificate could be picked up from the County of Santa Clara, i asked how long before i would be receiving the cremains. The lady on the phone told me that i obviously didn’t read through the portion of the agreement explaining that there were to be no individual cremains provided to the families of donors.
Luckily, for Diana’s request for spreading at PG, i remembered that, in my wallet for a little over four decades, was a lock of her hair from a visit to the beauty parlor a week before we were married. My thought was that far more of her DNA was in that sample than would ever have withstood incineration.
The only minor matter was how to get that DNA to the spot where the Monterey Bay and Pacific Ocean currents converged without wading into waist-deep water or hiring a small boat. The solution was obvious: the lock of hair was split into two and each half was frozen in an ice cube.
A few weeks later, on what would have been our 41st wedding anniversary, Tony (“Sleeze”) Rocha and i drove to Pacific Grove where both ice cubes successfully made their way into the “convergence.”
In 2007, Diana read how John Denver had died near the Monterey Bay when his plane crashed after he’d taken off following lunch and drinks. His pilot’s license had been yanked after a DUI conviction some months earlier so he had no business behind the controls. The autopsy showed his blood alcohol level was almost twice the drunk-driving standard in most states.
On 16 April 2016 as Sleeze and i approached Diana’s and my “picnic spot,” the trees were gone. After finding nearby parking, as we made our way to the rocks at the shore, we noticed a large boulder with a plaque explaining that Denver had crashed there. Obviously, the trees were taken out by parts of the burning airplane wreckage.
Before pitching the ice cubes, Sleeze had me hold the zip-lock bags in front of the plaque so he could take a picture on his iPad. In the other photo taken that morning, the sweater was one Diana knit for me on her machine some thirty years earlier inspired by the Escher print, “Night and Day.” The shirt worn beneath the Escher sweater was one she had made a few years earlier out of fabric she found with music on it; specifically two “Inventions” by Bach.
From Pacific Grove we drove a couple miles north for lunch at Rosine’s, a favorite restaurant on Alvarado in Monterey where a dozen friends we’d known for decades had converged. Diana’s note suggested the lunch saying it should be a “happy occasion” celebrating a life with far more happiness than anyone could ever hope for.
Sleeze had traveled the farthest, from Florida. Next farthest was Dottie Cottingham from Houston. Everyone said Diana would’ve been pleased with how things turned out.
A few weeks after Diana and i first met, she took a photo that, as recently as autumn of 2015, she said was still her favorite picture of me.
December 2017
