True Love

The night I met my love, my wife, I knew I would.

It had been a year and a half since my first wife died. In those years before she died, I expected grief to be all pain, but it wasn’t. I found I could keep myself company, and pay attention to myself throughout the hard moments and that, if I did, they passed pretty quickly. I found that putting my hands in the dirt and on the piano keys soothed me. I found that singing was sometimes all I needed to feel a deep sense of solace.

So that night, thinking I was ready for love again, knowing that it was now, frightened me. I put off going out, took a long bath and went, just myself, to the sushi bar. I had never had a sense of foreknowledge like this, and, though I didn’t really trust it, I couldn’t shake it.

I arrived at the salsa dancing party late. This was unfortunate, since I actually needed the lesson they offered at the beginning. Everyone had found someone to dance with, and I stood awkwardly on the side, not sure what to do. The woman running the night noticed me, the wallflower on the side. She drew me over to the chairs, and asked one of the women sitting there, “will be her partner?”. Slight hesitation and then she said yes.

It’s hard to stay objective about the first time you lay eyes on a great love. She says for her, it was love at first sight. It took me until our first dance finished up.

There’s nothing sensible about that kind of love. It hits you like a thunderstorm, insisting on itself! Yet ultimately, there is nothing more sensible! We hardly danced that night, because we were so busy talking. Three subjects dominated our conversation; death (she had lost her father a few months before I lost Joanne), children (motherhood for me, aunthood for her), and spirituality (as opposed to religion). At one point, she said, “I practice a sort of Christian, Buddhist, Native American kind of thing,” and I thought, “this could work!”

We stayed until the dancing ended, and then I invited her to the sweat lodge I was part of. She had been looking for one. She gave me every number she had (I think there were 4) and I gave her mine (I didn’t have as many).

Yes, we knew right away. She went home and emailed her friend, “I’m in trouble and she has children!” I went home and, when my teenager missed her curfew, I let it slide and told her, “you lucked out because I met someone tonight.” The next day, at lunch with my parents, I told them I had met someone who was going to be important.

Nearly fourteen years later, I am no less sure. I have had the great honor of exchanging vows with my beloved 3 times (doing our part for the gay marriage thing). We have parented together, prayed together and mopped the floor, painted the living room and gone to school meetings ad infinitum. I do not take this life for granted. I know in my soul, through experience, that loss is inevitable and we have each other for just a brief time, even if it is a lifetime. So every day, even when I’m mad or tired or just plain cranky, I know I am lucky.

I wrote a song a little while after we met called, “Lightening Striking Twice.” The odds against that are just as long as the odds against two great loves in a lifetime. But I have been that blessed, to have loved and been loved to the very depths twice in my life. I will never take my wife for granted. I will treasure her for as long as I am given, and beyond.

In Memory

Joanne and Me 1970

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the death of my first wife. As I write these words, I feel a kind of stunned disbelief- how could she have been dead so long? And yet it also feels much longer- all the kids are grown, or nearly so, I have been married to Deb now for going on 12 years, and, face it, I look A LOT OLDER!!
That time in my life, her 8 year illness, her decline, her death, brings so many different feelings when I remember it. Strangely, the one that comes up first is joy; because, really, there is no greater joy than facing ALL of life with a strong love and a community that supports you. (And also, gallows humor is pretty damn funny).
I met Joanne when I was 16 and I’d like to be able to say that we caught each other’s eyes and knew, right then, that we should spend our lives together but, c’mon, it was the 60s and I was 16! We finally began a “relationship” (if anyone had been calling it that then) when I was 18 or so, but it was a pretty loose thing. It wasn’t until I moved 3000 miles away and missed her too much to describe that I realized she was Important (capital I intended). She moved to California to move in with me.
Once again, I’d like to say we lived happily ever after but, hey, now it was the early 70’s! Lesbians just weren’t doing that. Monogamy was a bourgeois invention to support the Man, we needed to be free, marriage was to keep women imprisoned by men, blah, blah, blah… The two of us fell apart within a few years.
But here’s the really strange, or maybe pretty lesbian, part- we never really fell out. We morphed into the kind of friends who call each other at the worst times, just to hear a loving voice. We encouraged each other, came through for each other, protected each other (well, ok, maybe she just protected me). I knew, even then, that having a true friend that loves you, absolutely no matter what, is a supreme blessing. And I felt that, even while we were breaking up!
I hesitate to say this (my kids read my blog) but the gen-xers did not invent Friends With Benefits. There was that too, when we were single, lonely, whatever. We didn’t really consider turning it into Something again until…
I remember the day she told me about the cancer. She asked to go out with me and the person I was living with. We met at a restaurant and sat in the bar area. I was looking forward to seeing her. She came in with that big old smile she had, her confident walk, a little trouble in her face.
“Well,” she said, “the good news is I’m not crazy! The bad news is, it’s really bad.”
She had been experiencing severe back pain for 2 years, and couldn’t even get a doctor to give her an xray. (One of the doctors later admitted to her that he hadn’t taken her seriously because, in the medical community, if an African-American presents with back pain, they are assumed to be malingering!!!!) By the time she was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a form of blood cancer that breaks your bones, she had a broken back. She was given six months to a year to live.
I was there for her right away. You bet; this was my friend! I had her power of attorney within a year. She said it was because I was the only one who could pull the plug if I needed to (and eventually, I pretty much did need to). What I couldn’t have predicted was that we would fall in love again, and this time we would have a marriage. For 6 ½ years, we lived with death in the background, but it only seemed to make life more vital. (Well, at least after I got done panicking! That took a couple of years.)
She started talking right away about having a child together. I thought she was out of her mind! A baby and a dying partner? Not to mention the older kids…
About 4 years in, we went to Hawaii and somehow, being in that air just helped me get ready to take the risk. Was I going to put off life because of what might happen? That didn’t seem to line up with anything else we were doing. So, we came back prepared to begin having a baby (we planned for me to give birth).
The universe had a different plan! The day we came home, we met a mother who needed to place her baby. Within a week, my youngest daughter, two months old, had moved in with us, forever (although we didn’t know it was forever for a long time). One of our friends said, “I was thinking this just doesn’t happen to people, and then I thought, it does if it’s you two!”
It was a crazy decision (I’m sure you’d all agree) and the expected result, the one I feared, happened- Joanne died 2 ½ years later. But it was also a right decision- the blessings that have come from loving a dying woman (her, specifically) and bringing that baby, now 17, into our lives cannot be counted. Everything is richer having learned even more deeply that some crazy things are right things.
I can see that many good things in my life are possible because I learned to live more fully. And even loving again, taking the risk of losing love, eyes open to the preciousness in each day, has made my marriage to Deb, and our true love, richer and deeper, because I’m just not that timid, uncertain person I was so long ago.
I honor Joanne for helping me learn that love is the only answer, the only thing worth risking everything for. I thank her for opening up my life ever more fully to the living. If there is a life beyond this one, I know she’s somewhere winning at Scrabble, attracting people to come near, just to be around her and most of all, laughing a hearty laugh.
Happy death day, my friend!

Bragging Rights

While out to dinner one night, I’m sitting across from my youngest, and she says, “why don’t you write about ME, Mom?!!!” and then the middle one says, “Yea, I haven’t noticed a column about me graduating from college yet. That’s worth a piece, right?” The oldest wasn’t there, but I’m sure she would have chimed right in, “don’t I get a blog?”
The funny thing is, I was staying away from specifics about them, thinking they would accuse me (well, at least the youngest) of getting in their space if I wrote about them. On the other hand, what’s a parenting blog without DETAILS about the actual CHILDREN!
So I am about to engage in wanton bragging- I warn you in advance in case bragging mothers make you want to… fill in the blank!
Excuse me while I flip a coin, so that they know I am not showing favoritism.

The youngest won the toss. Her sisters probably feel like that happens way too often these days, since she’s the only one still living with us. Where to begin? She is an actress, a dancer, a soccer player, an independent thinker, a social activist, and has been in student government since seventh grade. She protects her friends, whether they want her to or not, states her opinion, sometimes very stridently, and is never invisible. Weekly self portraits in kindergarten all had a “tada” quality. She can make a case like you wouldn’t believe, sometimes convincing us that she could (or will) become an attorney.
She plans on writing one of her college essays on Gay Marriage, and has made it clear she wants us to fact check. Period. Yes, she is VERY independent. And impressive, and seems very much like a grown up until I remember that she hasn’t retired all the stuffed animals, and she still needs a little guidance now and then (whether she thinks so or not).
And the middle child- she has just graduated from college as a linguist, having spoken in her short lifetime 6 different languages. She has travelled the world, absorbing different cultures and making friends on a global scale (sometimes even a boyfriend here or there). She is kind and protective and sometimes quiet, but very able to express what she wants when she wants.
We were separated for some of her childhood (that is a story for another day) but the thing that I noticed when I was able to be in her life again was that this was the very same beautiful soul I had known from birth, the same steadiness and observing eye. And now, that spirit is in an adult body, and I have the phenomenal honor of watching her walk though her life, loving her along the way. She teaches English to foreign students, creatively inspiring them to converse. Her respect for other people is palpable.
The oldest, who has had the most time to be herself, knows how to make beauty of her life and in the lives of others. I see the result of her beauty making in a very successful interior design business, but also in good friends and a happy marriage. She glides through life (we could call it poise) and yet is very clear on her own limits and boundaries- she knows how to speak for herself.
As a Resident Assistant in college, she gave workshops on how to support the LGBT community, and, when I visited once, I noticed she had a sign at the entrance to her room, letting everyone know this was a “safe space” where no bigotry towards members of the LGBT community would be acceptable.
She meets each new person expecting them to be wonderful. This has allowed her to influence and teach many people whom she has very little in common with- including the ultra conservative church where she sang in the choir in high school (how did she even find them?), resulting in a whole lot of lesbians showing up for the Holiday Concert. The congregation looked mighty confused! When they couldn’t change their stance on gay rights to her liking, she left, but not before she really tried to bring them over to her way of thinking, and I mean really tried.
These little snapshots are so limited- how to capture these children of my heart in just a few paragraphs? But what I notice reading it back is that they are all three very, very good people! They want a better world and they are each, in their own way, creating it, as world citizens, ambassadors, and teachers, just by being who they are.
When I’m depressed about gay teen suicide, or the fact that my marriage isn’t recognized, or the way “that’s so gay” is still an insult, one or the other of them will say, in some way, “don’t worry mom, when it’s up to us in a few years, this is a NON ISSUE.” And looking at the strength of their convictions and the force of their characters, I believe it!!!

Stable Marriages

Last week I read all 138 pages of the decision ruling Proposition 8 unconstitutional, on every ground. Mostly, the arguments supporting the decision were things I’ve thought about, talked about, written about. But there were a few things I’d never really articulated, and that meant the most- that a legal expert had thought about the law, and democracy, and justice enough to surprise me!

Here are a few points I especially enjoyed:

(In response to the Pro8 folks positing that society has a vested interest in supporting sex within marriage for the purpose of procreation).

“To the extent California has an interest in encouraging sexual activity to occur within marriage (a debatable proposition…) the evidence shows Proposition 8 to be detrimental to that interest. Because of Proposition 8, same-sex couples are not permitted to engage in sexual activity within marriage… To the extent proponents seek to encourage a norm that sexual activity occur within marriage to ensure that reproduction occur within stable households, Proposition 8 discourages that norm because it requires some sexual activity and child-bearing and child-rearing to occur outside marriage.”

(In response to the Pro8 argument that society should promote stable families):

“Proponents argue Proposition 8 advances a state interest in encouraging the formation of stable households. Instead, the evidence shows that Proposition 8 undermines that state interest, because same-sex households have become less stable by the passage of Proposition 8. The inability to marry denies same-sex couples the benefits, including stability, attendant to marriage.

Proponents failed to put forth any credible evidence that married opposite-sex households are made more stable through Proposition 8. The only rational conclusion in light of the evidence is that Proposition 8 makes it less likely that California children will be raised in stable households.”

Finally, a bit of sanity!

For about 5 minutes, I engaged in the fantasy that couples waiting to get married would now be able to rush down to the courthouse, at least until the Court appeal. Those hopes were dashed when a stay was granted to halt all marriages while the appeal process unfolds. (This was reinforced by the appeals court yesterday- no marriages until the appeal process is concluded)… Stopped at the door once again.

The irony is that those of us who want to get married are main stream. We’re pretty straight and narrow (pun intended!) by and large. We live in our little abodes, we have children or we don’t, we share resources with each other, we go to work, we’re sure not out there worrying about all the activities the Pro 8 folks think we are. We have no interest in undermining straight marriages or taking over the world. As my brother once said, “Cheryl, you’re the straightest lesbian I know.” (I was afraid to ask him exactly what he meant, but you get the gist).

So, for now, I can imagine the day when the question will be settled and we can all just go on with living. May it be sooner than later, at no cost to anyone (especially emotional or physical), and may we all get a chance to celebrate a win for democratic principles!

Make it Work!

The summer proceeds in its lazy, frantic way. I remember having time to be bored in the summer, so by the time the fall came, I thought I wanted to go back to school. There isn’t much time to be bored for our youngest. Soccer, theater workshops, trips and friends- each minute seems to be full. And, if nothing is going on, there is still the constant drone of the “text” alert on her phone.

I am beginning to think that humans are undergoing a genetic mutation. Anyone under 25 is automatically destined to become a cyber-techno! Every new gadget we get, our daughter knows how to use sight unseen- I mean every single feature! For a fifty-something, I’m not bad, but she’s still my go-to person when I get stuck.

Of course, I have to prepare for the inevitable “tsk” of the lips, possibly accompanied by the eye roll, and, if I’ve already irritated her that day, an “oh, mommmmm.” Sometimes it’s worth it, to watch her click a few buttons, competent and sure, taking me where I need to go or fixing what I did wrong. I may not actually learn how to do it myself- her fingers move at lightning speed over whatever keyboard is in play- but I’ll know it CAN be done.

It makes me remember all the things I thought I knew and I thought my parents didn’t. These were of a more sociological nature. I knew we needed to undergo a sexual revolution, that old ideas about gender were antiquated, that not everyone was straight. What I didn’t realize was that every option I had in my life, all the thoughts I was allowed to think, had been won because my parents DID know something about what needed to change. They had gay friends, my father supported my mother to have a career. He did the dishes and played with me. They laid the groundwork for me to go further. But, in order to go as far as I did, I had to believe that what I was doing was entirely new- that I had invented change.

My mother told me a story recently about visiting her grandmother as a little girl. There was still no running water, everyone had an outhouse, and her grandparents taught her how to well witch (i.e.find water with a stick) out in their field. This was not a casual occupation- they needed the water! My mother commented that, in her one lifetime, an unbelievable amount of ground had been covered! Sometimes it staggers my mind to think of what the changes will be by the time I’m 80. I have lost the sureness that I will be able to keep up!

If I can’t, I know I’m going to hear about it, “it’s so easy mom, what’s the problem.” But then, one of those beautiful kids, or their friends or spouses, will probably touch a view dials and make it work. How lucky am I!?

Strip the Willow

We had a great time in Scotland at my nephew’s wedding! What a beautiful place. It was another one of those experiences I could never have imagined having. They were married at a castle, with a pipe band and kilts and lots of salmon! The room where they exchanged their vows was covered with deer skulls and antlers, all hunted by members of the family of nobility that had lived there for hundreds of years. Long hallways and historic bedroom sets, tapestry, all kinds of history beginning around 1500.

Having never been to Europe at all, it was just the kind of thing that impresses a novice like me. Us Europeans are new comers in North America, but in Scotland, not so. Everything really felt OLD! Since many of my ancestors are from that part of the world, there was, in fact, some sense of homecoming too.

I’m not sure what the Scots made of us. We didn’t exactly fit in, as you might imagine. Every single person there was white, except for three of our party. My wife and I were the only lesbians, unless someone was doing a good job of hiding it (which we weren’t). But they took it pretty well- responding with confusion more than judgement.

At dinner, I introduced myself to the woman sitting next to me, pointing out my wife across the table. About five minutes later, she said, “I’m not sure I quite got who you’re here with.” “That’s my wife across the table and our three daughters and son-in-law at the next table. I think we’re legal here, aren’t we?” “Oh, yes, yes yes,” she answered quickly- I could see the light dawn, her thinking to herself “she DID mean wife…”

We wore the same clothes we wore to my daughter’s wedding, meaning that we were color coordinated and my wife was in a tuxedo (I told her later we should have gotten her a kilt, but for some reason she didn’t think that was funny). I left the room for a moment and, when I got back, she was Scottish dancing with all her heart, a dance called “strip the willow.” She later told me the locals kept getting confused with their instructions, because she had insisted on dancing on the men’s line, instead of the women’s. When we danced it together later, there were a few other young women doing the same.

I concluded at the end of it that, in general, you CAN tell people how to relate to you. Thousands of miles from home, geographically and culturally, people were able to adjust to us, accepting that when we introduced each other as wives, they were to treat us as such. Not one person scowled, or sneered or gave us so much as one sidelong glance. Instead, as seems to be the Scottish way, they were terribly concerned about whether we had everything we needed, whether we were having a good time, how did we find Scotland.

We missed Gay Day that weekend, but we did our part anyway, don’t you think? And we had a blast while we were at it!

Crafty Mom

I spent last Friday morning making pearls out of gum paste, then painting them with pearl white food paint, all sparkly, to put on cupcakes with Tiffany Blue icing for my new niece-in-law’s Bridal Shower (the theme being Breakfast at Tiffany’s). This is what children have done to me! I turned into crafty mom, make from scratch mom, how can I make it more complicated? mom (that last is what my wife thinks).
But in my defense, it’s actually fun, really, having a picture in my head and then trying to make it happen. In these 30 years as a parent, I’ve knit sweaters, hemmed pants, made costumes, fixed rips and tears, made cookies and cakes and crème brulee, cooked thousands of dinners, (often from a limited menu during those times when my children would only eat 2 things), embroidered, crocheted and made collages, helped to paste dioramas and poster board projects, even edited quite a few term papers.
To parent is, after all, a verb. It’s a doing kind of thing, not a thinking kind of thing. Each child wants different stuff (not that much recycling) and the chief preoccupation of my life with kids has been to try my best to foster their happiness. So along the way, I learned how to make tutus for dance class, frame art they brought home to me, create planets to hang around the house (in the correct order) for a treasure hunt birthday party, paint stars on ceilings, make curtains.
What I hope is that my enjoyment of doing those things for them showed, that it contributed to a sense that they are worth some trouble, that they are loved, that I would do anything for them (as long as I thought it was good for them). I hope they know how grateful I am to have been changed by them, and I pray I can continue being affected by who they are and what they touch in me.
This is why I love being their mom!

Becoming a Mother Lesbian

There are certain times in life made for nostalgia, that delicious looking back which highlights the very best things in life. I am finding that getting ready for the last of my children to leave home is just such a time.

I wasn’t sure this would be true for me, since my three daughters are so far apart in age. I thought maybe all the recollection and savor might have happened along the way. But there is something so different in anticipating the end of daily parenting.

I have a 29 year old, so I know that parenting doesn’t end. But the end of this immersion- wow. It matters. And so, yesterday, I began re-experiencing the very beginning of my life as a parent; pregnancy.

All my kids travelled very different roads to come into my life. But the oldest came through my body. So in 1980, I was a pregnant lesbian. (Sounds a little like a B movie title!) I really want to refrain from the, “in my day” thing, but really, it was different then!!! I’d been an out lesbian almost 10 years, and I wore my hair super short, jeans and flannel shirt, people knew I was a lesbian, even on the street. Then, suddenly, no one knew.

I went from being a pariah everywhere I went to having people touch my belly without asking. I felt so vulnerable anyway- it was a shock. And then there was the inevitable, “your husband must be so excited” or, worse, “how does your husband feel?” I realized right away that being a mom was going to involve more coming out than I’d done in my entire life. I had avoided situations which might require it; working in lesbian environments, socializing with lesbians. But suddenly there were pediatricians, OB-GYNs, other moms, interested people on the street! And I knew I was headed for child care providers, teachers, PTA, dance and soccer. I imagined there would be an infinite number of people I would have to set straight (pun intended) about my sexual identity.

Then there was the lesbian community. When I went out to events, there was this look I got with a clear message, “what are you doing here?” I was a traitor, a turn coat, I had betrayed my lesbianism, or I wasn’t a lesbian at all. At one point, I even started wearing a button; “How Dare You Presume I’m Heterosexual?” Of course, there were also women who wanted intimate details on how I’d done it, like being asked about your sex life by a stranger. Well, maybe worse, because it was my child’s story, not mine.

But the miracle of all this is that I LOVED being pregnant; the amazing feeling of inviting a child to the world. I paid minute attention to every experience I had in my body. I took the best care of myself I had in all my life- ate right, did yoga, rested. I was exhausted but more excited than I could ever remember being. I had thought nothing would ever be more important in my life than coming out and now, I found out there was something. I was going to be a mother!

I wanted to wear clothes that made it clear I was pregnant as soon as possible. I hated the beginning, when I felt pregnant (as in nauseaous) but looked the same. I gave up my allergy to dresses, because it felt better to have something loose on. I rubbed my belly constantly and watched it grow with glee. I planned a home birth, with midwives, wanting it to be an intimate and homey experience. And it was all that.

A few months after my first child was born, we were driving in the car, her in her tiny car seat in the back, me being the best driver I knew how to be, and I suddenly thought, “I’m a mother.” I really didn’t know it until right then. It wasn’t just that I’d had a child; I was a mother. And I realized that I wasn’t a lesbian mother, I was a mother lesbian. Kid trumped sexuality. I still feel that way, and I think I always will.

Each of my children has an amazing and wondrous story, each unique and special and unlike the others. And I have my own story, of which this is the first chapter- “How I Turned into a Mother Lesbian.” I’m so grateful that I did!

One Thousand One hundred thirty-eight

One thousand, one hundred and thirty-eight.
If someone tells you that lesbian and gay people having the right to marry doesn’t matter, that’s the number you need to know. That is how many rights and responsibilities I don’t have. This is according to the government (they actually went through all the laws and regulations on the books and counted those that pertained to marriage).
O.K., some of them don’t apply to me. For instance, I am not married to a military person, so I will never have the experience of not being notified when they are killed in action, or having to move immediately after they die in Afghanistan because I don’t have a right to stay on the military base. And I’m not in the military, so I don’t have to be afraid of losing my career because someone finds out that I love someone of the same sex. I won’t have any more children, so I don’t have to worry about all the extra steps it takes for both parents to be recognized. I already paid my money to change my name, something which would have been free if my marriage had been legal.
But I’m finding as I get older that many of those 1,138 are extremely relevant. For instance, if we travel to another state that doesn’t recognize me as her wife, I don’t have a right to be consulted about her health care, or to be let in her room, should she get ill, suffer an injury, need a doctor. I don’t have the right to inherit the money that is in my wife’s name without paying the same tax on it that an unrelated person would pay. If our marriage was recognized, I would pay no tax. If we were recognized, she could retire and take my spousal benefits until she was 70, thus doubling her own benefit because she deferred taking it. We would therefore save tens of thousands of dollars and maybe actually be able to survive retirement. That is what married people can do. If one of us died, we would have the right to our spouse’s social security benefit, should it be more than our own. We’d be able to receive our spouse’s pension, which will end immediately upon death under our current legal status. I can tell you that trying to plan how we will retire is pretty tricky, given that our circumstance together is so vastly different than if one of us dies. Hey, we have to think about it!
Some people think that no one should get an advantage from being married. But the fact is, marriage saves the government money because spouses take care of each other. Spousal income is considered for public benefits, thus disqualifying many married people from them. Hey, there’s been a study by the government of the savings- why don’t we save the government billions of dollars and legalize gay marriage!? After years of thinking hard about marriage, I actually think it helps societies to act as if commitments to other people matter! And it’s dollars and cents too!
My kids keep saying, “don’t worry- we’ll take care of it when we’re in charge in a few years.” And they do have a point. In the younger age groups, the percentage of support for legalized gay marriage is much higher. But I keep saying, “before we retire, please, otherwise you’re probably gonna have to support one of us someday!” I hope they know I mean it!!

Happy Anniversary, baby!

Saturday, we will scatter my father’s ashes in the San Francisco bay, on the first anniversary of his death. Sunday is Mother’s Day, and on the same day, the 12th anniversary of our marriage. It’s a collision of events, for sure.

The first conversation I ever had with my future wife, the night we met, was at a salsa dance party. It revolved around three topics. First, death. She had lost her father almost 2 years before, and I had been widowed a year and a half. Second, kids. I had three, she had 15 or 20 nieces and nephews. (We both had plenty to say about children). Third, our spiritual viewpoints. She said, “I practice a kind of a Native American, Catholic, Buddhist thing.” I thought, “This could work!”

She went home and e-mailed a friend: “I’m in trouble and she has children.” I had lunch with my parents the next day and told them “I’ve met someone.”

From that moment, we knew we would be together. The first time she called me (I’d given her every number I had) she talked to my youngest child, who was three. They seemed to get along pretty well, so that was a good sign. By the time I got the phone in my hand, we didn’t have much time left to talk, so I suggested she call after bedtime. She did. Every night.

I think it was within the first month that we began to talk marriage. O.K., I know, stereotypic lesbians bringing the U-Haul to the first date (can’t do that anymore- U-Haul is an Arizona based company). But the thing was, death had made us both more surefooted. If you know a thing to be real and true, you may as well just dive in, because there’s not a moment extra in this life. So we didn’t really hesitate.

For the first year or so, whenever she was asleep I would see her face as it might look in death. Superimposed over this very alive, beautiful love was the echo of my loss. She told me she felt Joanne had entrusted me to her, and she was ready to be there, completely. She was patient about the evidence, in every room of my house (which soon became her house) of another love. Joanne did her part too, by telling me before she died, “you need to love again- don’t waste all we’ve learned together. Maybe it will even be better!” Such a generous gift to the life I would have when she was gone. And my wife has never demanded that I deny the importance of that first marriage.

One night at dinner, within the first 6 months of our relationship, the three year old turned to her and said, “Are you going to die too?” I held my breath. This person I loved but was only beginning to know was going to have to answer the toughest question I could think of. And she said, “I’ll be here as long as you need me.” The deal was sealed.

There have been other losses and other celebrations in our lives since then. One year, 5 of my friends died, all of different causes. There are losses in her large family on a regular basis. We sat together, with two of our children, at my father’s bedside as he died last year. This is life! There are also weddings and births, graduations and housewarmings, holidays and everydays. What a blessing to be in this life together!

So this weekend, I imagine I will feel nearly every emotion a human being can feel. Maybe I’ll even feel them at the same time. I’ll celebrate, I’ll mourn, I’ll eat and drink and sleep. And I know who will be next to me.

At the marriage of our good friends, my wife read the following:

Why is it that people get married?
Because we need a witness to our lives.
There’s a billion people on the planet.
What does any one life really mean?
But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything…
The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things,
All of it… all the time, every day.
You’re saying “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.
Your life will not go unwitnessed – because I will be your witness.”

So we’ll forego our usual trip out of town for our anniversary, and we’ll be with our loved ones, our family, and we’ll laugh and cry together… and that’s exactly what our marriage is about.

Happy Anniversary, baby!

(quote from Pittman, spoken by the wife in the movie, “Shall We Dance?” 2004)