On a sunny Monday afternoon, we held a memorial service for Diane at the River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda, Maryland. River Road is where high holy day services are held by Beth Chai, the Washington area Jewish Humanist congregation that we belonged to for lo these many years (from the late 80's when Matthew was a small child). Diane was not religious but she valued Jewish culture and enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the people of Beth Chai.

Arthur Blecher, Rabbi for Beth Chai, presided and I gave a eulogy, included below, preceded by comments by Art, Lisa Abelson Rabinowitz, Sheldon Hofferman, Judy Kelley, and Frani Wartow. Lisa was a friend of Diane's from her youth. Sheldon talked about Diane's contributions to Beth Chai. Judy and Frani talked about Diane as a co-worker at Wilmer Hale (a large Washington-based law firm). Bob Rosenblatt and David Elfin, friends from Beth Chai, assisted as greeters. Gail Shapkin and Lynn Smith, good friends of Diane, assisted by providing refreshments as we greeted everyone after the service. Matthew as always gave me the strength to get through it all.

The service was attended by around 50 people, quite many of our friends, mutually and separately, and neighbors. For me at least, it was very perfect. I think Diane would have enjoyed it. Beyond all my expectations, three of my cousins from Alabama (June, Benny, and Nancy) came. Everyone from Alabama, my uncles, aunts, and cousins, and New York, particularly Diane's brothers and cousins, have helped me immeasurably in this.

As people arrived, we played recordings of several musical selections that Diane particularly liked:
• Violin Concerto In E Minor, Opus 64 - Allegro (Felix Mendelssohn)
• Mozart Piano quartet E Flat Major, K.493 : 1. Allegro (Emmanuel Ax, Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma)
• Saint-Saëns: Danse Macabre, Op. 40 (Charles Dutoit; London Sinfonietta)
• Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastoral": I. Allegro Ma Non Troppo (Hogwood - The Academy of Ancient Music)

Diane and I were a perfect match.

You would not have thought so in 1974 when we first met. It was the first day of our first jobs, out of the Navy and graduate school, leaving the Navy Yard. As I've always been quick to claim, I knew it right away. She didn't see it for a while (this was the one time she wasn't so quick) .. but here we are. We had to work through some issues in the early years, but we did and I don't think we ever disagreed about anything important since then. All in all, our 35 or so years together were as good as I can imagine possible.

We had more in common than you might imagine from our backgrounds -- a Jewish girl from New York and a Methodist boy from Alabama -- but we had very similar values, in part I think maybe because our parents had all been Roosevelt Democrats and had imparted many of the same values to us.

Where we were different, we often complemented each other

• She was both very smart and very quick; my tendency is to think things through more - we learned how to balance these to our benefit
• She liked to get up early and I liked to stay up late - even though we always did most things together, this gave us our own times that we each valued
• We both liked to read but her preference was good fiction whereas mine was more science and philosophy
• She liked to read the Wash. Post every day, I liked to read the Sunday NY Times
• She found restaurants and movies and plays for us to see, I found the parking spaces

Whatever the reason, I think we ended up much better off together than either of us would have been separately.

The thing that Diane most hated over these months was losing her independence. A few weeks ago, she became unable to get out even to Starbucks or restaurants that we liked. Sitting with her, often on our deck in the shade of the trees there, and particularly near the end, I found solace and hopefully she did too.

I've had a wonderful life with Diane and you can't possibly imagine how much I miss being with her. Clearly the last 2 months were extremely difficult for her but she had only hoped to leave here with grace and I think she did that.

Grady