"Diane. Diane had a beautiful gift, an empath of the highest degree. She could look you in the eye and instantly know what lies at the center of your heart. "Most people," she'd say, "...are warm hearted." She taught me to see the warmth in every person, no matter how bad my prejudices skewed my judgement. "The tough biker in the bar is more worried about his aging mother than he is of starting a bar fight," she'd say. A saying of her own, which she crafted lazily one Saturday night at a crowded bar. She sensed my uneasiness with the tall, balding, leather-clad biker, and she knew exactly what to say. It's something she had always done, ever since we met at twelve. I remember when she first told me of this gift. We were young. Too young to really question the metaphysics of it. And I believed it. She said she liked me because I really loved my kitten, Frank. I loved that cat until the day it died of old age. When that happened, at 26, she was there for me. From the moment she looked me in the eye she knew that I lived for Frank. She became my fiance. Of course, she knew the question was coming. She said yes as soon as I said her name. I hadn't even kneeled yet. The engagement ring was still in my coat pocket. Sometimes I wonder how far in advance she knew I'd ask her to marry me. For fourteen years we were inseparable as friends. We saw each other grow. Helped pick each other back up whenever things went wrong. I confess, sometimes I worried about her absorbing too much. Her gift had a harsh way of making her sick. I remember the countless times we went to a doctor just so that her illness was dismissed as "nothing," or "stress." I remember those countless times I looked at her with worry. She'd look at me with a warm, calming smile and tell me I worry too much. On some aspects that's true. But for her, I didn't worry enough. On our way from Texas to Colorado, we drove past a white SUV. There was nothing extravagant about the SUV that would make me pay special attention. As far as I was concerned, it was just another family on their own trip elsewhere. That afternoon Diane saw someone, or something, inside that SUV which made her recoil with pain like no other. I can still hear the panicked, blood curdling screams, and if I didn't see her next to me, I would have thought she was being torn apart limb by limb. I pulled over and held her in my arms for a half hour as she screamed and thrashed until she stopped. When the screaming finally ceased, she went completely catatonic. The next two months at the hospital I held hopes that she would wake one day from her coma and things would be fine. But that day never came."
