Ken Rodriguez: Diane Tilly's life: A golden hyphen between 1946 and 2004
San Antonio Express-News - 12/8/2004

When I think about Diane Tilly, I think about the best sermon I ever heard on life and death — a 30-second TV spot built around an inscription on a gravestone.
To paraphrase the Rev. Charles Johnson of Trinity Baptist: It's not the day you were born that is important. It's not the day you die that matters. It's the hyphen — the life in between — that counts.
I never got to meet Diane Tilly. I wish I had. The hyphen in her epitaph gleams like gold.
Between July 6, 1946, and Nov. 22, 2004, Diane lived a life on earth that now resonates in heaven. She helped found an alternative high school. She became its lead teacher. She took in students who were drifting and gave them direction. She changed lives.
Without Diane Tilly, Brad Collier might have been a lost teen. He suffered from attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity. He often skipped school. He ran with a crowd of drug users.
Brad wasn't headed for college. He wasn't even sure he was going to graduate from Alamo Heights High School.
But then he heard about the Robbins Academy, a school for at-risk students where many have blossomed under Diane's leadership. Brad enrolled last year. Recently, he received a scholarship from Our Lady of the Lake University, where he will study art.
It wasn't simply the academy that made the difference for Brad. It was Diane.
"She went to court for me," Brad was saying Tuesday morning at school. "I got caught with marijuana. She won over the judge. She saved my butt pretty much."
Without Diane Tilly, Brad would not be college bound. It was Diane, Brad recalls, who sent his sketchbook to Our Lady of the Lake. It was Diane who signed him up for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. It was Diane who pushed and pushed.
"She was not going to let me not go to college," Brad says.
Brad Collier is but one golden sparkle in Diane's legacy. There are others — many others — and their light will shine for years to come.
Still, for those deep in the shadow of Diane's death, it's hard to see much light. Police found her body Saturday, almost two weeks after she was reported missing. On Monday, some grieving students at Robbins Academy went home ill. There were tears. There is pain. A question lingers: Why?
Diane had just returned from her 40-year high school reunion, giddy. She was expecting a second grandchild. She was going to visit a boyfriend over Thanksgiving. She didn't know it, but he was going to propose.
Why was she taken?
I don't know, but I go back to the golden hyphen — to 58 years lived with challenges and wonderful purpose.
Diane supported a husband through medical school. She wound up divorced. She raised two children and won PTA awards. She developed special friendships at Alamo Heights Methodist Church. She became an English teacher who would give at-risk students a morning wake-up call at home.
Yes, the hyphen in her epitaph glows. The glow touched Drew Taylor, a teaching intern at Floresville Middle School. He once took a class from Diane at UTSA, and wrote the following e-mail:
"I hope Diane Tilly's family might rest a little easier knowing a lot of us are out there trying in some small way to imitate what she so effectively did everyday."
What Diane did every day was not ordinary. When the wife of a social studies teacher became pregnant, Diane allowed the teacher time off to take his wife to the obstetrician. For that, Shaun Hedgepeth will always be grateful.
He'll also be grateful for early morning visits with Diane before school. Sometimes Shaun would arrive singing a golden oldie. Sometimes he and Diane would begin dancing to "Louie Louie."
"She'll always live in my heart," Shaun says.
No, I never met Diane Tilly. But when I think of her, I think of the lyrics to a song by Truth:

"If you could see me now,
I'm walkin' streets of gold.
If you could see me now,
I'm standin' tall and bold.
If you could see me now,
you'd know I've seen His face.
If you could see me now,
you'd know the pain's erased."

One small hyphen. One beautiful life. Diane Tilly, 1946-2004.

Ken Rodriguez is a city columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.