By Margo Greenman
Sometimes finding the right way to tell someone how you feel can be difficult. However, for Olympia resident Diane Coulter, expressing her everlasting love to her late husband has been made easier, thanks to some sentimental stonework on Providence Way.
It was 1994 when Diane Coulter decided to take a chance at romance with a man named Brent. She’s glad she did. The two met on a blind date, and it was, as Diane says, “one of those love at first sight things.”
Before Diane and Brent even made plans of matrimony, they already knew that they would be spending the rest of their lives together. Both older in their years when they met, Diane and Brent decided early on to make a retirement strategy. The plan was that Diane would continue working as a nurse at Providence St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, Ore., and Brent, who happened to be seven years older than Diane, would move to Olympia and work at Intel’s DuPont location until he could retire. They would have a long distance relationship, commuting back and forth on the train, in the meantime.
Their plan was solid and their future was bright, but things became complicated one month after Brent moved to Olympia. He had a heart attack. It was 1998 and Brent needed open heart surgery. He had the surgery at Providence St. Peter Hospital, and though the two were rattled with stress and fear, Brent’s surgery was successful.
After a healthy recovery, later that year during Thanksgiving (some five years after Diane and Brent’s first date), Brent proposed. Diane, who had been so patient all those years, was ecstatic and said, “yes!”
They would be married less than one year later on September 11, 1999. Or, that was the plan at least. In the days leading up to their wedding Diane was with Brent in Olympia. They had plans of taking the train down to Portland, where the wedding was to be held, in just two days. Their bags were packed and they were ready to go, but Brent hesitated. He felt a twinge in his chest, and they decided to make a stop at St. Peter’s before departing for their wedding.
The good news was that Brent’s cardiologist, Dr. Kennedy, was working at the hospital that day. The bad news was that all except one of the five of Brent’s heart valves that had been replaced had closed up. Brent was rushed into the ICU and Diane frantically made phone calls informing caterers, the band and their wedding guests that there had been a change in plans.
However, as Brent recovered following his surgery, Diane kept busy. Determined to marry the love of her life, Diane obtained a Thurston County marriage certificate, contacted the hospital chaplain, and planned a new wedding. When Diane returned to Brent’s bedside with the new marriage certificate and a pen for him to sign his name, she recalls him saying, “Well at least now the baby will have a name.”
“He had an amazing sense of humor,” she says.
One week later Brent was discharged from Providence St. Peter and the two were married by the hospital chaplain. It took several years and a whole lot of hospital trips, but at ages 52 and 59, Diane and Brent finally had their wedding. And, although it wasn’t the large, catered wedding in Portland they had planned for, the two couldn’t have been happier.
Diane was still living in Portland at the time of the wedding, but the current state of things accelerated her move north to Olympia. She quickly packed up her things and relocated. Now, both living in Olympia and happily married, Diane and Brent wanted to give back to the hospital that had given them both so much. The first donation they made to Providence was to the Sunshine House, a facility on the grounds at Providence St. Peter’s where Diane stayed during Brent’s surgery.
Then they discovered the bricks on Providence Way.
“They started out as love letters,” Diane says. “[Brent] did the first one. It said, ‘Diane and Brent, sitting in a tree.’” Diane says in the years that came she and Brent would dedicate bricks to one another, alternating turns but getting mixed up from time to time. As time went on, the two would dedicate bricks to loved ones who had passed. “It was important for us to continue the memories and to keep something permanent going, because life is so impermanent,” Diane says. “Every time we would go to the hospital we would look at our bricks. It was just great, these permanent love letters.”
Since Brent passed away nearly four years ago, Diane continues writing him loves notes on Providence Way, sometimes one a year, sometimes more. It just depends on how much she has to say. The bricks are Diane’s permanent Valentine to Brent. “They take in the sun, the snow, rain, everything. The bricks remain no matter what comes our way,” she says. “What I’m trying to express over the years, and over the bricks is how much I loved him. Sometimes it’s musical, sometimes it’s humorous, but it’s always with love.”
Would you like to write a message or love letter to someone you care about in brick on Providence Way? Bricks, pavers and benches can all be purchased online by visiting Providence St. Peter Hospital’s website here.
Diane and Brent’s story is an important reminder to learn about your risks for heart disease, and Providence is here to help. Take a free 10-minute heart health assessment at Providence.org/MyRiskMyHealth.
