Diane Chambers looked back on the year of 1987 with a "Their Eyes Were Watching God" passage swimming through her mind: the one where she spoke of years that asked questions and years that have answered. 1987 was a year that answered "yes" to Diane in ways she never thought possible. She had finally married Sam Malone, the man who drove her to the brink of insanity and also made her dive into a deep, passionate love that she never thought she could feel for anyone. For all she was worth, she knew deep in her soul that she was born to love Sam and she prayed to God that Sam felt the same way. The way he kept letting her in after she had kicked herself out and the way that when they finally decided to settle down, no matter how crazy she was during that engagement period, he didn't let go. Diane silently promised him every morning when she woke up that she wouldn't let go, either.
They were married that summer and that Thanksgiving of that year, she had announced to her husband and to her Cheers' friends who had stayed for dinner that night that she was pregnant. For the first time since everyone's beloved friend, Coach, died, Sam had broke down and cried. Seeing her husband like that made her cry and she had no idea how long she stood there, hugging her husband while all the cheers crew stared and watched; nobody cared, not even Carla.
It was now 1988 and she had just gotten home from her first art class in years. There was a six-week course at a community center not far from Cheers and it was all about painting with your intuition. A class not only for art enthusiasts but also for people yearning for understanding of the spiritual aspects of themselves. Diane was a little of both; everyone that knew her knew of her love of art but only she knew of how desparately she needed to get her new found happiness fully expressed. Sam was surprisingly supportive of his wife's desire to paint again and even bought her a few colors and brushes. Diane bought her own easel and canvases to work with.
"Here goes nothing," she said as she got ready to paint on her own.
Diane had gotten undressed to nothing but her bra and underwear, then she put on an old button-down flannel shirt of Sam's, and put her hair in a ponytail. She looked down at herself and smiled at the fact her little baby bump was peeking out of her husband's shirt. Her hand never left her belly while she squeezing her color choices onto her base. She got up, looked down at her colorful base and looked at her blank canvas and had an overwhelming sense of pride; she knew she was going to create something extraordinary.
An eternal flame had been ignited inside of Diane and she instinctively mixed her yellow and her orange to create a peachy bud in the middle of her canvas. Beautiful, she thought as she mixed a little of her red with her white to create pink. This flame will be protected by a pink light that was diminutive yet fierce. Diane laughed as she thought that those words were along the lines of what Sam would use to describe her. She mixed blue and red together next to create a plummy purple but she decided the hue was too harsh for her next step so she mixed it with white to create a more lavender shade. It was perfect as she discovered while she fluttered her brush around her softly bold pink. Now she decided she was ready for that intense purple. She shed tears as she broadly stroked her paintbrush throughout the outer edges of her canvas. Her artwork was complete and she felt a sense of rebirth.
"Wow," she heard her husband say from the other end of the room. She turned around to face him as she smiled through her tears. Sam went to her as she dropped her colorbase and wiped her eyes. He pulled her into a hug and rubbed the back of her head. "I didn't know you had it in you, sweetheart."
"I didn't know, either," she replied as she let her husband love her.
"Does this painting have a name? Seems like all the great ones do."
Diane looked at her artwork again, this time with a bigger sense of pride. What would she call this piece? It amazed her how she could see herself at every stage of her life with each color. The harsh purple being who she was before she met Sam, the lavender was the leftover her when Sumner left her to herself at the bar, the pink was the vulnerability she felt during her many courtships with Sam and the courtships in between and through it all, that tiny bud of a peach flame that saw her through all of it; her center.
"Imitation Of Life," Diane replied.
"What?"
"Imitation Of Life, Sam. Those colors are my life."