Roseau Times-Region - Serving Roseau County for over 100 Years - The Official Roseau County Newspaper

This old farmer lost his soulmate last Sunday evening. Diane AKA Ya Ya was pretty much a one of a kind person. We met at a road crossing during the SNO MO CADE cross country race in 1973. We were married October 19, 1974. Somehow, our love survived all the trials and tribulations that forty six and a half years can bring. Sometimes we both hid it well from one another. She put on a tough shell that was never cracked or understood by many. Once past that, there was a heart of pure gold underneath. Anyone that would like to judge her, please take over twenty thousand insulin shots and endure thousands of finger sticks. After thirty years of being a brittle diabetic she endured a pancreas transplant. That led to never much more than a week without a doctor someplace; whether Roseau, Grand Forks, Fargo, or many many trips to Fairview in the cities. Throw in several more surgeries including a kidney transplant because the anti-rejection drugs for her pancreas took out her kidneys. She said several times if she would have known everything that went with the transplant it would have never happened. We talked it over a few years ago and decided neither of us wanted a funeral. Cremation and our ashes in the place of our choice works for us. We were pretty much wedding and funeral churchgoers. It is no one else’s business but ours and Jesus, but all is well with our souls.

Sheldon Larson