Human beings are wonderful creatures.
We face loss every day & survive it, we stare our own mortality in the eye but live each day with hope and happiness for the future.
What other choice do we have?
I don’t mean to make anyone feel sad or emotional. This project wasn’t & isn’t about reaching out for stories of pain & loss. I find it hard to listen when somebody tells me a story that hurts them & if they cry or well up, I will too.
Let me tell you just a little of the story about my next subject, as much as you can when you have only spent 15 minutes with them. When they have lived long enough to have mature children and adult Grandchildren they have lived a life that is a novel all of its own.
This project is a snapshot..just a glimpse. I hope it helps people to look beyond the presentation, seek out the reality behind the facade or discover the sadness behind the smile.
Dianne is special. She’s the Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Sister, Aunt, Daughter & Friend that you wished you had. When she greets you with her soft beautiful smile, eyes filled with genuine affection, arms splayed ready for the warmest embrace, it feels like home. Her voice has the delicious lilt of her home town that should be recorded to send babies off to sleep at night, she really is a sweetheart. I didn’t know until today that this wonderful woman has had to endure such incredible loss.
Name: Dianne
Occupation: Realtor
- Where were you born and raised.
Greenville, South Carolina.
‘I was raised in the prettiest little house on the street, in the town of Greenville’
2. Tell me a childhood memory.
‘My Mother is still alive, she is 98 years old. My Mother lived during the depression & we had a wonderful childhood. Because my Mother was an only child but she was raised with all of her cousins together like brother & sister, so, that was how we were raised, the same way, we had a wonderful, good time’.
‘It was a fun place growing up’.
3. What is your favourite season & why?
‘Spring, cause everything is blossoming. Everyone has been through a Winter & everyone is ready to get up and go and thats my favourite time.’
4. Tell me about someone you love.
This is difficult for me to write. I want to be respectful to Dianne & honour all those she talks about in the gentlest most sincere way.
Dianne talks about her family as you will hear, her late husband and her children. When we are finished Dianne talks to me about a recent loss. I need to honour him here. I can only imagine how difficult it is for her family right now.
She is a woman full of love for so many.
Her husband. ‘Big Sam’
‘Big Sam & I met on a water skiing date when we were both in 10th Grade. My husband was in construction. Together we changed the skyline of Orlando, Jacksonville and other areas around Florida. My husband worked all over the world and we had two amazing children, Sammy & Camille. In 1986, whilst waiting for a heart transplant, after trying four different hospitals, we lost him.’
He was 49 years old.
When Dianne talks about her children she just fills up with pride and proud she should be.
Both World Class Championship water skiers by the time they reached their early teens they were representing the USA and travelling the world.
‘My children’.
‘We are a very, very close family. With Sammy & Camille competing Internationally it was us against the World’
‘In fact we travelled to Thorpe Park in Surrey and competed for several World Championships there.’
Which I believe Sammy won four times! (For the reader, this water park is very close to my home in the UK.)
‘Sammy calls me all the time and leaves me lovely messages, Camille and I speak every day, she is my best friend’.
Quite tragically, and completely unexpectedly on the morning of Thanksgiving 2014, Camille & Byron Hero lost their son, Dianne her beloved Grandson. He was 23 years old. He had died in his sleep.
Alexander Byron Hero was a model student, President of his school, winner of the Award for Excellence in Leadership and winner of the Varsity Soccer and baseball teams..to mention just a few of the wonderful achievements that can be accredited to him in such a short but brilliant life. More importantly he was absolutely adored by all of his family, his parents and Grandmother and his beautiful sister Gabrielle.
Having a son so close to his age I can hardly comprehend how much a loss like this can just devastate an entire families life.
Dianne told me in her beautiful sweet voice. ‘He was just darling, he made an impression on everyones life and we had him for just a little while’.
5. What words of wisdom do you have for the reader about life.
‘I’m very lucky & you are so wonderful when you have God in your Heart and in your family’.
6. Dreams for the Future
‘I have good friends and a wonderful family and that is all I dream for.’
Whoever you love, hold them closer tonight and make sure that they know.
