In the company of dragonflies

“She was in the sunshine, and all these dragonflies started swarming around her,Diane Dick works on her final piece of art, for her son, Sam.” recalled Diane Dick’s husband, David. “She had been diagnosed with cancer. She took it as a sign of hope – that she would have more time to live to see her sons grow.”
Diane was attending their youngest son’s kindergarten graduation in Elm Brook Park in Hopkinton when the dragonflies appeared. On Saturday, five years later, Diane’s life was celebrated at the Hillsboro-Deering Elementary School, where hundreds flocked to view her artwork and share their memories of her.
Diane taught at the Elementary School until the last day she could possibly do so.
“She taught until two days before she went into the hospital,” said former college roommate Linda Thorndike Williams. “The other thing that was really cool was how much this school supported her to teach up through her last days. I just think it’s phenomenal. The weekend before she died I went to see her to see what kind of service she wanted. She asked if she could have a few of her pieces at her funeral service, but then we thought we would have an art show in January at Daniel’s [Restaurant in Henniker]. But two days later she was in the hospital. So this is her show.”
“She showed us right to the end how to live with dignity,” said Kelly Goldsmith, another close friend and former college roommate. “She pushed me to be a better person and showed me what true friendship is. She didn’t have to tell you. She would just show you instead how she cared for you. She was the best there is.”
“Even though she was dying she always asked about your kids and problems,” said Williams. “She always pushed her students and herself with her artwork.”
“It was just as important to us to have her teaching as it was for her to teach,” said Elementary School principal Ellen Klein of Diane’s last days. “It showed the kids that even though she wasn’t well, she kept on going. She never showed her illness to the kids or anybody.”
“She did her last artwork about a month ago at my home in Maine,” said Williams. “She worked very quietly. She pushed herself to finish the light box for her son, Sam.”
Sam is her youngest, and the light box collage – a colorful piece incorporating dragonflies – was the last piece of artwork she made. She intended to make another one for her older son, Ben.
“I will be getting together with Ben to make that one,” Thorndike said.
Soft sculptures, pen and inks, sketches, pastels, water colors, ceramics, metal sculpture, macramé, paper mache, and works in other mediums lined the walls and were set on the tables in the Elementary School cafeteria. The extent of Diane’s versatility was not wasted on anyone there. The common remark in the room, in regards to her collection, was that no one knew how much work she had of her own.
“I’m kind of speechless, looking at all this,” said Joey Bottomly, a former student of Diane’s. “I had no idea she had so much work. She’s the one who taught me the primary colors. She was awesome. . . . She always covered for our shenanigans.”
Over the 16 years Diane taught at the Elementary School she touched many students as she did Bottomly, now an alumni and member of the community. Until her last days, students felt strongly about her. Testimonials from students were on the walls of all three schools on the school district’s campus, and were available in loose-leaf binders on Saturday.
“Mrs. Dick taught me how to do tessellations,” wrote fifth grader Sydney Cate Carter of the help Diane gave her with mosaic designs, and, apparently, big words. “Mrs. Dick was the best art teacher ever and no one can replace her.”
“I will miss her by how she helped me a lot in art class,” another fifth grader, Rhiannon Tallotta, wrote. “She has made me like drawing more than I used to. I will miss Mrs. Dick very much!”
One of Diane’s brothers, Doug Churchill, pointed out that one student had written that Diane had helped him draw a skull and crossbones. He observed that some teachers might not have encouraged that sort of imagery, but that Diane kept her mind open to the boy’s imagination.
“She was our big sister, and she had the qualities you would expect out of a big sister,” said Doug. “She was nurturing, she was caring, and we could go to her. She was a very compassionate person, and that was a life-long trait. And she was a lot of fun.”
“She was an incredible woman,” said brother Andy Churchill. “I didn’t realize how versatile she was. . . . Through all the years, I never had a chance to see all her artwork.”
“One of the things I told her is that she should be proud of all the lives she influenced. You’ve touched kids in ways you can’t even imagine,” said her oldest brother, Dan, who was only thirteen months younger than she. “I grew up with her and I had no idea she had so much great work. And I’m very impressed with this community and her friends and how they supported her.”
“I’m touched by her strength and I’ll carry her courage with me for the rest of my life,” said fellow teacher Pam Pascale.
“One of the many talents and gifts she brought to the school was her ability to bring out the best in her students and present their work in a very professional manner,” said Julia Gove. “She made our school a beautiful place by hanging the children’s artwork.
“We also didn’t know about all her own art. She never talked about it,” Pascale added.
David and Diane were married 26 years and had been childhood sweethearts and part of the same Church Youth Group. They started dating in 8th grade in the rural town of Stamford, NY. They stuck together through high school and stayed together during college and their initial jobs, even though they were separated by hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles.
Although David earned a degree in forestry, he ended up working on the construction of electrical transmission lines. While Diane was working her first job as an art teacher in New York, David was working in Colorado, Washington and Montana.
After their marriage in 1982, David and Diane eventually returned to the northeast. When a job on a line from Boscawen to Massachusetts came his way, they decided to settle in the area. But David didn’t exactly have his geography in order. Rather than looking for a house in the Manchester area, nearby the work on the line, he convinced Diane they should settle in Hillsborough.
“We came to Hillsborough by mistake, but it has never been a mistake since,” David said at the service held at Smith Memorial Church. “Because we have met so many people and Diane got involved in the school system.”
David made it very clear how much he and Diane appreciated the friendships they made in town, from folks around town to everyone they knew in the schools, and the support their friends have given.
“The custodian, Rick Kulbaki at the Elementary School, would help button her coat at night,” David remarked of the help Kulbaki gave Diane as it became harder and harder for her to keep up with her daily activities.
After years of a heavy schedule of surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation that often led to complications, David found the timing of her last days to be unusual.
“She wanted her people around her. She held on, dealing with the oxygen mask, and waited to be able to say goodbye to her father, the boys, her brothers, all the family members and friends she needed to say goodbye to,” David said of her last days in hospice. “She hung on to make phone calls.”
Then there were the wind chimes she liked so much, the ones she spoke of to her family and friends, a certain brand. Her friend Kelly Goldsmith came from New Jersey to see her at hospice, along with her early Christmas present for Diane.
In Diane’s last hours before dawn, David heard the faint sound of another set of chimes in the distance, while he was working on Diane’s obituary in the next room.
“I took it as an indication that something was happening. I went into Diane’s room and asked her if she could hear them, and talked to her a little bit, and then went back to my writing,” David explained. “Then my mother said I better come in because her breathing is changing. Then the nurse came in and opened the window, saying sometimes it helps the spirit to move with fresh air. And I asked Diane again if she could hear the wind chimes.”
It was then that Goldsmith went out to her car for the wind chimes she had wrapped for Diane’s present.
“She got them, and unwrapped them and hung them in the room. They were just beautiful and tuned,” said David. “Diane’s heart had been pumping very hard, and when we hung the chimes up and I turned to ask if she had heard them, her heart had stopped. And the sun was coming up and it was a beautiful sunrise.”
When David and Ben toured Harvey Memorial Cemetery, they found dragonflies everywhere in the ornamentation on the various headstones and other stonework. And they knew they had found a proper resting place for her.