Five years ago, Diane Cheek got the phone call that every mother dreads. Her oldest son, Jason, was in intensive care after a car accident. A drunk driver – another boy in his early 20s – rear-ended him after a birthday party both had attended.

While Jason’s passengers were visibly injured, he didn’t have a scratch on him. But inside his body was a snapped vertebra that left him paralyzed from the chest down.

Cheek, an event planner at the time, was scheduled to work a wedding the next day. Instead, she and her husband, Jerry, drove for 20 hours to see their son in Minnesota. Jason was in intensive care for four weeks, then spent four months in a rehabilitation hospital. Cheek didn’t leave his side until he joined Courage Center, a rehabilitation center in Minneapolis that advances the lives of people with disabilities. From an active 23-year-old to a quadriplegic, Jason had a lot to work through, Cheek said, but he was also inspiringly upbeat. Even in the hospital with tubes coming out of his arms, he was unfailingly polite to his caretakers.

“He had his moments of ‘Why did this happen,'” Cheek said. “But I said, ‘Jason, this is what we’ve got. We can either sit here and cry or smile and get on with it.’ So that’s what we did.”

Cheek spent half a year caring for her son. Her event planning business fell apart. It was a hard, hard year, she said.

“When I used to hear people say that things happen for a reason, I thought, that is the dumbest thing I ever heard,” she said. “But it (the accident) has taught me so much.”

She’s more comfortable around people with disabilities, she said. When she sees someone in a wheelchair, she’s not afraid to go up to them and ask how it happened.

“Everyone has a story, and it’s always interesting,” she said.

Cheek was amazingly sympathetic toward the drunk driver, who ended up spending time in prison for his crime.

“I felt really bad for him. He had some problems, but it wasn’t in his day planner to go out and paralyze my son,” she said.

At a court appearance, Cheek said, she met the boy’s parents and realized that they were just like her and her husband – they had all experienced a great loss.

“Our statement was, we’re going to get on with our lives. You can get on with your life, and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Cheek said.

Jason, despite his disability, is fine now. He’s married, and working toward a master’s degree in business.

Cheek moved on with her life by starting a new business with some friends, Keep It Simple Suppers (KISS) in Umatilla. Originally designed to help families with prepared freeze-ahead dinners, KISS now focuses on serving lunch and espresso drinks. The economy hit the business hard last year, Cheek said, but it is slowly reviving. Cheek is also staying busy with KISS’s catering business. Last Friday, she helped prepare 200 sack lunches for Head Start.

Cheek’s partner and best friend, Maureen Roxbury, said owning a business that isn’t “totally successful” can be challenging.

“Both of us are crazy, so that helps,” she said with a laugh.

“She makes it fun,” Roxbury added. “She’s willing to give and give. She’s the hardest worker.”

Even while working hard, Cheek finds a way to make her business about family. Most weekdays, her youngest, Katie, 16, serves lunch and makes drinks while Cheek cooks. And she always seems to be adopting people who come in her door, she said.

When a young couple came to town looking for work, Cheek gave them a few meals from the freezer and some leads about where to find a job. One day, a man came into KISS with a blown-out wheel on his bicycle, so Cheek called a friend of hers, who gave the him a ride into town.

“I just love my customers.”