Diane Jeanne Warden Currier

Diane was a genuine Force of Nature. She was born the eldest of three sisters on 4/4/44 in St. Mary’s Hospital, San Francisco, to native San Franciscans, Allan and Jeanne Warden. She attended public schools in The City—West Portal Elementary, Herbert Hoover JHS, Abraham Lincoln H.S. and kept classmates from those schools, and Girl Scouts, as lifelong friends over all these years.

At 17 Di went off to college at U.C. Davis. There she met her husband, Tom, and for the next 56 years they had great fun together, sharing lots of love and laughter, often with both sides of their extended families, all of whom loved Diane.

After graduating college, Diane moved with her family to Carmichael, CA. She has two wonderful sons, Josh (Sherri) and Jordan (Cindy) whom she cherished, and three beautiful grandchildren—Jack, Cassie and Sam—whom she adored.

Throughout her life, Diane was a person who cared about people. This was true when she worked in the Math Dept. at UCD, when she volunteered in the music program at her sons’ elementary school, when she was the Lady at the P.O. in the U.S.P.S. substation at Mission Pharmacy, when she was office manager in the small distributing firm of a friend, when she was knitting “prayer shawls” for Alzheimer patients and “preemie beanies” for the heads of little ones, and when she was engaged in the final career endeavor of her life and the one she loved the most—Tai Chi instructor for Mission Oaks Park and Recreation District, where she met many wonderful new friends.

In addition to her own kids, Diane delighted in the births of all her nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grand-nephews, whose birthdays she always remembered, often with handmade cards and surprises.

Diane did not suffer fools gladly, but she would be the first to reach out not only to those she loved, but also to those she perceived as in need or in any way vulnerable. Certain common phrases wove through the thoughts of those who loved her or even those who simply knew her—phrases like, “she reached out to me”, “she always offered help”, “her unique ability to connect with people,” “her quick (and often snarky) sense of humor,” “a remarkably sweet woman so deeply loved by all” and so it went.

Diane’s strength of spirit was indomitable. When she received her terminal diagnosis, she opted to forgo additional medical intervention with its attendant side effects, its infusions, its hospital and doctor visits and its minimal extension of life with significantly reduced quality. Instead, she chose to spend what time she had left as cogently as possible, seeing and saying goodbye to friends and family and was grateful to have the time and the many opportunities to do so. In fact, during the last few weeks of her life, although in considerable discomfort, Diane managed to order, assemble and present her last Father’s Day gifts to her husband and sons.

Diane’s passing leaves such a terrible void in the lives of so many—her family, her lifelong friends and her most recent acquaintances. Whether we knew her as “wife”, “mother”, “Gramma”, “Auntie Di”, “sister” or “friend”, she brought us all such love, compassion and humor. Diane made the world a better place just by being in it.

Diane’s brother-in-law, Jeff Howard, in dedicating his latest book to her, quoted William Saroyan, who said, “I know you will remember this—nothing good ever ends…” Such is true of Diane. Perhaps the thoughts of a more recent acquaintance of hers reflect what we all felt about Diane. Upon learning of Diane’s death, her friend, Paula, said that she was torn between feelings of anger and grief at not meeting Diane earlier in life… and the joy of having known her at all.

It is with this sense of grief and joy that Diane Currier is remembered by all who knew and loved her.