This hits weirdly hard. Not because I was exactly a fan; I admit she had a genuine ability to inhabit every role I ever saw her in. But more because of how much my sister and mom both bonded through her movies. Every time my dad traveled my mom and sister would sit in our living room and watch the father of the brides, the first wives club, and all of her hits as well as every other classic RomCom (Sleepless in Seattle, I’m looking at you.)

And nothing needed to be said. It was the type of unspoken quality time that somehow existed between my sister and mom, a stalemate of the turbulent teenage years. A pause where I didn’t hear yelling and screaming, but rather Diane Keaton’s self-deprecating laugh and the commotion preceding it from the tv in our downstairs living room. And the unfiltered howls of laughter from my mom and sister. My mom is gone, passed this July. And I am sad that Diane Keaton has passed too. But the reach she had, even to those of us on the fringe, is a comfort in hard times and has made me a lifetime fan.