But what tore me up is that I couldn’t be there. Diane is a sister, my sister. We are tied in ways that I don’t even understand. All I know is that my bond to her is there-- strong and irreversible.
We met at HBO, both working as writer/producers in the on-air promotions department. She seemed very sweet and innocent. We became fast friends, but I soon found out that the sweetness and innocence was not the whole picture of who she is. Diane is the type of woman that women want to be, and men want to have. She is sweet, loving, intelligent, and a shrewd businesswoman.
There is also a homegrown, down-to-the-earth quality about her that I identified with right away. We’re not the garden variety Sex-in-the-City, Manolo Blahnik, Louis Vuitton-bearing New York City women. We’re also not the all-natural, vegan, back to earth types either. It’s more something in between. More of a meeting of the minds between my bowl of South Carolina grits and her Jamaican porridge.
But it’s been our differences that have helped me to grow. When we first met, I was so anti-pop culture and anti-convention that oftentimes I would cut off wildly accepted expressions of American culture such as Miami Vice and sayings like “that was FRESH!” which (wow) still irks me to this day. But every now and then it bites me in butt-- just like when I couldn’t “get” Prince or Purple Rain.
In the case of the latter, I subsequently had a remarkably vivid dream of the Purple One, or better yet, a phantasmagoric sexcapade where P and me romped through the galaxy like I’ve (sigh) never romped before. Needless to say, I interpreted this as a need to revisit my initial disdain. And as fate would have it, I found myself three months later at the Glam Slam, Prince’s one-time club in LA. There I experienced one of his infamous 2am to 4am concerts. A work of art. Priceless. I have been a devotee ever since.
In any case, Diane served the vital function of short-circuiting the universe’s need to get my attention in unorthodox ways. She shares with me all the things she loves or loved including Boyz to Men, Celine Dion’s theme song to the movie Titanic (I don’t even know the damn name), and the Golden Girls television show. Out of the three, I’ve held onto the latter.
She’s made me work hard as a screenwriter, pushing me to my writing limits on the scripts Soon Come and The Pagoda. She’s made me play hard, sparking my craving for travel, which she got from her mother and my Jamaican “mommy”, Joyce. I’ve experienced life from the back of a Rastafarian truck, participated in more group events - hanging out with more people at one time than I’m naturally comfortable with, and have partaken in many a Sunday dinner with Mommy’s slamming rice and peas, curry chicken, goat, and all things Jamaican in between.
So you can see, not being there on her wedding day was a dagger in my heart. Moreover, she was there on mine. Kaj and I got married in a small, quick, private ceremony that was necessary for immigration purposes. At first I was afraid to ask her, because I knew she would be concerned for me. Kaj and I had known each other less than a year, and then there was also the “white thing”. Not that it was a bad thing, but it meant more complications.
Diane and Kaj met each other at the funeral for Di’s beloved grandmother, Daisy. Daisy was Diane’s rock and vice versa. In the months before her passing, I remember Diane as she watched Daisy grow weaker and weaker until the end. The way in which she was there for “Gama” was a lesson in loving. Yet at the funeral, she took the time to look into Kaj’s eyes to see who he really was. So it was with great relief that Diane said “yes” to being a witness at our ceremony. It also said to me that she thought things would be okay.
A year later, Kaj and I would travel to see Di as she had moved out to California. It was a tough time for her as the entertainment is full of promises and closed doors, even for the talented. At that time in my life, friends were either distancing themselves or being supportive based on how they felt about my being with a white boy. Even I had my doubts and insecurities as I remembered my pact with myself in the first grade to show the world how successful black marriages could happen. When I think back to why I made the pact in the first place, it was because all of the successful blacks I “knew”, Sidney Poitier, Diane Carroll, Sammy Davis, Jr., were all married to white people.But I learned that life is a little more complex and the universe sometimes has something else in mind, and for me that was Kaj. Everybody couldn’t see the depth of the man who was now entering my life. My current life in Europe has shown me why that it is like that in America. So the quiet, shy, geeky, computer-nerdiness of Kaj didn’t fit the ghetto-cool, intellectual, new Negro persona we were trying to fashion.
However, Diane was one of the ones who really saw Kaj for who he is. At one point in our visit to LA, she reached over to me in the car and whispered, “Kaj just called you his brown bunny.” In that moment I knew that she got him. She got his heart, his love, his generosity, his integrity. He wasn’t just some appendage to me that should just be tolerated. He was and is a big soul.
I’ve left out all the arguments or disagreements because they don’t mean anything. Like the time I left her at the office and went to the NAMIC Christmas gala because I thought she was being her usual late self but in reality I forgot that we’d agreed to meet at the other exit door! Or like when we went to France and were at the Chateau De Versailles and we lost one another because Diane decided to stay with a tour group and didn’t tell me because she was, after a week, sick and tired of being with my ass! No, it doesn’t matter (heifer).
So this is my wedding gift to Diane. Thank you for your friendship, love, sisterhood, listening, and family. Thank you for Mommy, Gama, Ann Marie, and the "continent" of Jamaica. I will always be there for you. You and Jason always have a home to come to in Denmark.
With love eternal,
Lana
