http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... known.htmlShe had golden curls, a cheeky grin and wore colours brighter than any I’d ever seen. When, in the summer of 1960, Diane arrived in my sleepy Somerset village from Pennsylvania, U.S., she simply took my breath away.
She was eight years old. I was ten, and all summer long I thanked my lucky stars that her grandparents happened to live at the end of my lane. She and her sister Debbie smelled of fruit- flavoured chewing gum, at a time when I didn’t know such a thing existed.
They talked in their Pittsburgh twang of things I’d only read about in comics — cars with names such as Mustang and Firebird; baseball; the Grand Canyon; skyscrapers; and ice cream that came in flavours other than vanilla.
For a sheltered boy like me from the West Country, it all seemed impossibly exotic and exciting.
But what was even more amazing to me — what was truly unbelievable — was that Diane hung on my every word and marvelled at everything I did.
Mundane as my life seemed to me, that summer in my quiet little village — Chew Magna, in the heart of Somerset — was a real adventure to a little girl used to the bright lights of a big U.S. city.
At that time, the Sixties were a long way from swinging. No one had heard of The Beatles or colour television. But for the first time in their lives, Diane and Debbie could roam wherever they wanted in complete safety.
So that’s what they did every day — through the back lanes of the village, over the rickety bridge and down to the lake, charming the locals as they went, with my friend John and me tagging along, basking in their glow.
Diane and I discovered we shared the same birthday, January 23, and even at our young age, we felt something special. As if we were meant to be together. Although we were far too innocent to know anything of love and romance, we knew that we wanted to be with each other from sunrise to sunset.
My boyhood belief that girls were tiresome creatures quickly slipped away as the days and weeks passed. After all, Diane could climb trees as well as any boy I knew. She was also so heart-meltingly sweet that I caved in to her suggestion that we might hold hands once in a while.
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They say love changes everything. All I know is that I truly cannot remember a happier time in my childhood. Little wonder that my little boy’s heart broke when Diane and her family returned to the U.S. at the end of the summer.
All I could do was hope and pray it wouldn’t be the last time I saw her.
And thankfully, it wasn’t. There were two more visits to her grandparents to come.
The first was the summer of 1965. Diane was now 13 and I a far-from-worldly-wise 15; our feelings for one another were just as strong, but still too complicated to express. We hugged awkwardly from time to time, and even attempted a kiss, which began earnestly but ended in giggles and red faces.
Was it true love? I suppose it was, but I didn’t know it, still less knew how to handle it.
And that schoolboy awkwardness would cost me dearly, on Diane’s next visit. Although I had thought of almost nothing and no one else since she left, I was then 17 and, stupidly, had come to the absurd conclusion that playing it cool was certain to seal the deal.
How wrong I was. Diane, by then blooming into a beautiful young woman, was rightly horrified by my couldn’t-care-less attitude, which resulted in her (quite sensible) decision to spend the summer in the company of other village lads.
It hurt like hell, but I was a classic teenage fool — utterly paralysed by both my pride and stubbornness until the eve of her departure.
I spent that night searching the village for her, to make amends for my stupidity. But our paths didn’t cross, and she flew home to Pittsburgh without so much as a goodbye.
What I was not to know, until years later, was that Diane, too, had spent that last night searching for me. Or that it would be more than four decades until we would be reunited.
Do you remember your first love?
Do you sometimes think of it still, and in quiet reflection wonder what became of the young person you once held in your arms?
I know I did.
As the years advanced, I often thought of Diane, but my regrets about that missed opportunity in the summer of 1967 eventually turned to acceptance — and I moved on with my life. I met and married another girl, and became a father of two. Life seemed settled. Content.
But, in 2001, after 20 years or marriage, my world was rocked when my wife asked for a divorce — it was a sadness that many endure in the modern world.
So once it became clear that our marriage was over, I resolved to move on, and made a determined effort to go on dates.
Yet none brought lasting happiness. As the months turned into years, I gradually settled into a single man’s routine that held little prospect of finding a serious relationship, let alone true love.
Then, in the spring of 2008, quite by chance, I stumbled across the name David Slavkin — Diane’s brother’s name — on the internet. It was an unusual enough name, I reasoned. So I sent a hopeful email to the address on the site, more out of curiosity than expectation, and asked David if he had ever visited Somerset as a child.
For a month or so, I heard nothing. But then a flurry of emails arrived. First, from David, then from Debbie, then suddenly — ping! — Diane’s name popped into my inbox.
I had found her. And yes, she had remembered me.
To say that I was overjoyed doesn’t even come close to the way I felt. I treasure her first email to this day — a warm, rambling, breathless account of her life through the decades. Diane, it turned out, had three grown-up children and four grandchildren, but was in the early stages of divorcing her husband.
The years after we had known each other had been tough for her. Her parents had divorced and she went off the rails for a time, mixing with the wrong kind and dabbling in drugs. After a first failed marriage, she had finally got her life back on track, trained as a teacher and moved to Seattle, where she worked as a social studies teacher in a juvenile prison for rape and murder suspects.
She was completely devoted to her job — it was her way of making up for all the years she had wasted, she said.
She had also beaten breast cancer in 2001 thanks in part, I’m sure, to her intoxicating optimism. She had embraced the Jewish faith and enjoyed spending her spare time tutoring Hebrew at her local Temple and singing in the choir.
But she was at great pains to assure me that she was no angel. ‘I won’t deny it, I swear like a sailor when I have to,’ she warned me.
For two years we exchanged emails every day — often dozens at one sitting. Now old and wise enough to know there was nothing to be gained by hiding our feelings, we finally said all the things we should have said all those years ago.
By the time we’d graduated to transatlantic phone chats, often lasting two hours or more, it was clear to us both that we had fallen in love all over again.
In the spring of 2009, Diane, now divorced, agreed to come to England for a couple of weeks. I spotted her from afar in the airport arrivals lounge, and — just when my scared boyhood heart told me to turn and run — she saw me too.
Her outstretched arms and that same mischievous smile swept away all my fears.
I held her close for a full three minutes before we spoke. I knew it and so did she: this was it.
By then in her mid-50s, but still beautiful both inside and out, Diane was everything I’d hoped she might be. Despite all that she had been through, she was still the same ray of sunshine I remembered from my youth, with that same head of curls.
We spent our days lost in each other all over again, planning our future. We even weighed up whether we should live here or in the U.S. Diane was struggling with bad backache, but nothing could put a damper on her spirits.
Almost as soon as she got home, she made plans for her next visit. It was as wonderful as the first, and both of us felt that the future was — at last — looking bright.
But then, in September, came the phone call that changed everything. ‘Kev,’ she said. ‘I need to tell you . . . I have cancer.’
The pain in her back, which she had ignored on her visit, was a sign of something far more serious. I flew to Seattle straight away, where she met me at the airport, smiling but heart-rendingly fragile.
Despite her obvious exhaustion, Diane insisted on being my tour guide for my fortnight’s stay. And so I piggy-backed her through the city streets, while she waved and pointed at points of interest with her crutches. We laughed a lot, as people on the edge so often do.
My heart almost burst with pride when I heard her sweet voice soaring over the rest of the choir at Temple. And I noticed I wasn’t the only one there holding back the tears — Diane was not short of friends as concerned as I was to see her fading.
Throughout our second week together I pushed her in a wheelchair to countless hospital appointments. There was some hope, we were told, but there was no doubt that Diane was seriously ill, and deteriorating.
Despite this, she was quite insistent that we’d see each other again and I tried so hard to believe it as I boarded the plane home. But a week later, Diane was admitted to hospital and our regular emails and phone calls tailed off.
Waiting for news was torture, so my heart leapt one Saturday morning in November, when Diane called to tell me she was moving to a rehabilitation centre. Her voice was full of excitement. Things were looking up. There was a chance. But then, the following morning, another call — it was Diane’s sister, Debbie. Diane was in a coma. She wouldn’t survive the week.
I was by her bedside in Seattle within 24 hours, and there I stayed until the end. Through the long nights I sang Beatles hits to her, and I whispered about those long summers we spent together. I told her over and over how lucky we were to have found each other again.
My darling died on November 8, 2009, while I was sleeping beside her.
The life and love I shared with Diane was tragically brief and nothing like what we had dared to hope for when we met again after more than 40 years apart. But does it make me wish that I had left the past alone? Of course not.
To have had that chance to rediscover our feelings, no matter how fleeting or heartbreaking the experience, is the greatest gift anyone could wish for.
She was my first love. She was my true love.
I can't stop crying.
