Only a storm can create a full rainbow

I wish I could have met Susan Lyons. I know she would have added color to my world.
Susan was the kind of person whose light shined very bright, touching the lives of everyone she met with sunshine. When she was diagnosed with diabetes at 3, her parents, George and Betty, knew the road ahead would be difficult for their daughter. Susan's light never flickered, however.
Even when her world became dark, losing her sight when she was 28, Susan continued to be a ray of light to those around her.
Six months ago, Jan. 22, Susan's light was extinguished as she struggled to overcome complications from a liver transplant. She was 34.
Beating the odds
Hope and perseverance symbolize the beauty of a rainbow after a storm. As this smiling beacon of light departed this world, she left behind a rainbow in the hearts of everyone who knew her.
"She was very competitive," Betty said with a smile.
"A real go-getter," George agreed.
That was the fighting red in Susan's rainbow.
As a young child with diabetes, Susan received one insulin shot a day. This did not stop her from pursuing her passion -- horses.
"She rode all year long," Betty shared. "She rode in a snowsuit in the winter."
Involved in 4-H, Susan won bids to compete at the Ohio State Fair in Columbus four times.
"She was the 4-H queen in 1989," Betty recalled. That was the sweet orange of Susan's rainbow.
At Western Reserve High School, Susan was in the band.
"But that wasn't good enough," Betty said, laughing. Susan tried out for the flag line and made it. The following year, she decided she wanted to be a majorette.
Susan's ever-present bright yellow of her rainbow came shining through.
"She never had a lesson," Betty noted, remembering the hours Susan spent in the back yard practicing baton twirling. "She became a majorette."
When Susan graduated from high school, she followed her love for horses to Kentucky, where she worked on a horse farm. That was the adventurous blue of Susan's rainbow.
Later struggles
After a few years, she returned home and decided to pursue a career in massage therapy. The practical green of Susan's rainbow was emerging.
"By the end of her classes, her vision was failing," Betty recalled. She had five surgeries to save her sight, to no avail. "She was nearly blind when she went to take her state board test." The test was given orally.
George remembered his daughter's words, "She said to us, 'I can sit in a corner and be depressed, but I'm not going to live that way.'"
The deep shade of resolute indigo was appearing in Susan's rainbow.
While working at a doctor's office, giving therapeutic massages to patients, Susan began having problems with her kidneys, a complication not uncommon for someone with diabetes.
In October 2002, Susan underwent a kidney and pancreas transplant.
"For one year and three months she lived with no diabetes, no kidney problems," Betty said. She can't help but rejoice when she thinks of her healthy daughter.
This is the wonderful spray of violet, completing Susan's rainbow.
On Jan. 12 this year, Susan went to the hospital experiencing symptoms of kidney rejection. It was not rejection, however. She had caught a virus that went straight to her lungs. Ten days later, she died.
The storm was over.
Looking for the sunshine, those who knew Susan reflected on the bright colors of her rainbow.
"She lived every minute," George said of his daughter's life -- through the good times and the bad.
It seems her whole life Susan knew that the sun needs the rain for a rainbow to be.
gwhite@vindy.com