Messages from the afterlife
Diana Lenz was killed in a single car accident on July 24, 1999.
Her family believes they have received so many messages from her since then that Diana's father, Kevin Lenz of Evans City, has written a book listing them all.
“Diana's Miracles” was published in November.
Lenz will be signing copies of his book beginning at noon Jan. 22 at the Evans City Public Library, 204 S. Jackson St.
Lenz said Diana, 18, left their house about 12:40 a.m. that hot summer night to go all-night bowling with her friends.
Lenz said that at 2:15 a.m. he and his wife, Kathy, were awakened by two police officers telling them Diana had been killed in a car accident on Ramsey Road about a mile from her home.
She lost control of her Mazda 323, and the car overturned.
“It was a single-car accident. She was the only person in the vehicle,” Lenz said. “We believe and the evidence shows she unbuckled her seat belt and reached across to close the passenger window. It was a crank window.”
Lenz said his daughter, distracted by trying to close the window, drifted to the wrong side of the road and cut the steering wheel hard to the right.
“The car spun clockwise, and miraculously the back left tire was ripped off the rim,” said Lenz. “The police officer showed me where the rim dug into the asphalt.
“He said, 'This is what killed your daughter. It flipped over, and she was partially ejected from the sunroof.'”
Lenz said his wife had premonitions before the accident that something bad was going to happen.
“That same day my wife felt ill, sick. She said she never felt that way before. 'I feel sad,' she said,” according to Lenz.
They didn't know it at the time, but she was exhibiting all the signs of extreme grief.
Around 1 a.m. after Diana had left, but before the police knocked on their door, Lenz said, his wife turned over in bed and put her hand on his heart.
She told him she felt someone close had died, and she wanted to feel his warmth and make sure he was alive.
In both instances, Lenz believed, his wife was feeling the grief of Diana's death before it happened.
Since her death, the family has been visited with “signs,” incidents that Lenz believes are messages from Diana from the afterlife.These signs include the sighting of an angel-shaped cloud in the sunset the day after Diana's funeral, the mysterious snuffing of a candle in Diana's room that was lit on National Children's Memorial Day, and lights in the house going on and off at significant times.Then there was the rosebush. Lenz said his wife had bought a rose named after Princess Diana in 1997 and planted it.For two years it never bloomed.“It bloomed the day after my daughter's funeral, and for every year for the next 18 years it bloomed,” he said.“It never became a bush. It was a single stick with a huge, beautiful red rose. It bloomed for 18 years, Diana's age, and then never bloomed again,” he said.Lenz said the book, “Diana's Miracles,” came out of his attempts to keep a record of all the coincidences, strange events and appearances that have taken places in the time since 1999.“I had no intention of it ever being a book,” he said. “It started as a record of occurrences. I jotted them down and typed them up on paper to show to people,” said Lenz. “They said, 'You should publish this.' I put them all together and hooked up with a publisher.”Lenz who retired from AT&T in 2003 to become a driving instructor, still is the administrator for his own driving school, Driving In A New America (D.I.A.N.A.).His other children, Kelli, who's an instructor, and Timothy, a software engineer for Lockheed Martin, designed the driving school's web site.Christine Johns, the president of the Evans City Public Library Board, said Lenz, who had been running a driver's education class out of the library's community room, approached her about having the book signing.“We had done one in the past. We were certainly open to that to engage our community and to showcase a local author,” said Johns.Asked why he wrote the book, Lenz said, “The takeaway: I want them to get hope. I consider this to be evidence of life after death.“I hope that gives people hope. Not to fear death, it doesn't matter. There is some sort of existence after death,” he said.
