I apologize in advance for the somber mood of this post. Generally I try to post stories and events that are uplifting, but I just needed to express myself today.
My cousin Diana was killed on June 26, 2006, just a few months after her 40th birthday. She was the first born of my mother's twin sister and I spent a lot of time with her when we were children. As a child I idolized Diana, she was so cool! I'll always remember her baby blue satin jacket with matching satin cap(it was the '70's!) and her Dorothy Hamill haircut. My hair was always too curly for that look!
Diana always seemed a little larger than life to me growing up. She was fun and exciting with lots of friends. She had a fiery personality, lots of opinions and she was just a tad stubborn at times. As an adult Diana was audacious, loved a great party, enjoyed being a hostess and craved the attention of her loved ones. She also had big dreams. After her death I discovered that Diana had been planning, collecting and making purchases for her future. She desperately wanted to move from her apartment into a house...a home. She was buying things for this future home, dishes, an outside barbecue, red flower pots. She had plans. Diana was shattered by the death of her brother in a random act of violence. I travelled to the Bay Area to help Diana and her sister make funeral arrangements for Darren. Little did we know that only 11 months later her sister and I would be grieving her death and making her funeral arrangements.
Yesterday morning a jury of 12 convicted Diana's "husband" of 2nd degree murder. Was it justice? It seems that both sides are a little disappointed. The defense was hoping for manslaughter, 6 years in jail, then starting his life over. I won't talk about him though...he's already received too much attention. The prosecution was hoping for 1st degree murder, minimum of 25 years until his first chance at parole. In the end we'll all have to be satisfied with the 15 years he'll serve before he's eligible for parole, and hope the parole board hears our pleas when we request that he not be released at that time. Diana's two boys will be 29 and 31 years old then. They will have lived out the remaining of their teenage years and catapulted into adulthood without a mother by their side.
I was able to travel to Martinez to attend a good portion of the trial. I only wish I could have been there to hear the verdict. I'm still struggling to forget the brutal details of her murder that came out during the trial. I don't want to remember the autopsy photo I accidentally glimpsed as the jurors were passing it around. I don't want to recall the details of the crime. I just want to remember Diana, in that baby blue satin jacket, with her Dorothy Hamill haircut. She was larger than life and she will be greatly missed!
