This is how Diane Choi tells the story:

I was 5 and I was having a tiny garage sale all by myself. And I met Sandy, wait, no, well, first Denise came along and then Sandy came along ...

Diane is an artist who specializes in hearts and exclamation points. She is 8. She lives with her mother, her little sister and her big brother.

I was selling little things for 25 cents and, well, first I marked them $1 and my dad said that was too much so I changed it. Then I said, "Do you want to buy one?"

She lost her father after that.

Diane is sitting at her kitchen table, playing WebKinz World on the computer.

Denice Aten is here. (Actually, Diane is sitting on Denise's lap, giggling, and Denise is hugging her.) Denice lived upstairs in the same apartment building on Old Cheney, where Diane lived when she was 5.

Sandy Harris is at the table, too. (She is sitting next to Diane's mom, Yeon-Og Choi). Sandy lived across the hall from Diane - before the sad memories got to be too much and Yeon-Og moved Diane and her little sister and her big brother to this house on the south edge of the city.

Denice and Sandy bought trinkets from Diane's tiny garage sale.

And then they wrapped up Diane and her baby sister and her big brother and her sad mom in their love.

It all began almost four years ago.

Diane's dad got sick. His stomach hurt and he kept going to the doctor, but by the time they discovered the cancer, it was too late.

Sandy would see In-Keun Choi sitting on the balcony of the family's second-floor apartment, a skinny man, bald under his baseball cap, wrapped in a blanket.

She thought he was Diane's grandfather. That's how much the cancer changed him.

She never met him, but Denice did.

Denice was there the day he died.

He'd fallen and Yeon-Og called her to help. Denice was a nurse and she'd just moved to Lincoln from Kearney with her family to the apartment just above Diane's.

There was a new baby in that apartment, Grace. A lucky name. Diane's family believed in God's grace.

Especially Grace's dad. He had been so strong. He was 42 when he died in June 2006. A Ph.D. student at UNL who grew up poor in South Korea and brought his new bride to the United States so they could finish their educations.

They started a family here.

And after he got sick, Yeon-Og made her husband a promise.

She would be strong for their children when he was gone. And she would raise them here, in America.

Yeon-Og cries at her kitchen table now.

It's still hard, but she's trying to keep her promise. She is finishing a graduate degree in instructional technology. So many people have helped her, but now she needs a job.

She holds Sandy's hand.

Sandy became a mom to me, she says.

Sandy knocked on her door after In-Keun died.

"She said, ‘What do you need?'"

And she meant it. Sandy listened at 2 a.m., when Yeon-Og needed to talk. She brought hot wings to cheer her up.

Then Yeon-Og got sick, too, and needed a hysterectomy. Sandy came to her apartment and stayed with Diane and Baby Grace and their big brother, Elliot, for two weeks.

Denice was there, too.

Denice had left the Old Cheney apartment when her family found a house, but she never left the little family. She helped Yeon-Og find grief groups for the children, counseling for herself.

She invited Yeon-Og to her church, St. Mark's United Methodist. That's where Sandy goes, too. They're together every Sunday. The church gave the family a van.

"I was struggling," Yeon-Og says. "Friendship came to help me get up."

Denice and Sandy say God blessed them with this family. Her "Choi Joy," Sandy calls it.

Baby Grace runs in the room to give kisses. Elliot is shy, downstairs. The children are beautiful, the women say. So smart. So strong and faithful. A testament to their mother.

And their dad.

Diane isn't finished telling her story.

I wrote a letter to my dad after he died. Do you want me to read it?

Dear Dad, I see the moon at night. Can you see it? Can you? I love you.

She colored a picture, too. A family crying, giant tears spilling off their faces onto the page.

And in the middle, a giant heart smiling.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.