Today, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their commitment ceremony to each other, my two female friends S. and L got married. I knew it would be a special day, but even I, the ultimate sentimental fool, was not prepared for the emotion I felt.
More after the jump
S. and I met when she was married to her ex husband and I was married to mine, twenty nine years ago. The two of us quickly became friends -- the only two wives in a group of partying 80's couples that were working on MBA's in the evenings. Our ill-fated marriages broke up within months of each other a few years later, after we had gotten those degrees -- once there was no longer school to go to in the evenings to get away from our miserable lives, it seemed like the marriages were quickly put into sharp focus, and the pictures weren't pretty.
A few months later, I went out to lunch with S. She said she had something to tell me, but then seemed embarrassed to actually tell it. We played twenty questions. "You quit your job?" I asked. "No." "You slept with my ex?" "Definitely NO!" After a few more silly guesses, I said "You're gay?" She sheepishly looked at me with her big brown eyes pleading for acceptance and said in a small voice "Yes.". I started to laugh, only because she had been so foolish as to think that I would care at all about something like that. "S, nothing could make me not be your friend-- how could you worry about that!" I remember scolding her. She looked so relieved she almost was near tears. Then she told me she had met this woman at work and that they were involved. I said I wanted to meet her and after lunch we went over so I could get introduced to L, who I instantly knew was one of the nicest people I'd ever met.
About a year later, S and L made a commitment to each other, just the two of them in Hawaii, but at that point her family did not accept this choice for their daughter. Her parents, I believe, thought this was a phase, and that, as S said, like the girl they had raised to always have her handbag match her shoes, she would go back to men after she got this bohemian lifestyle out of her system.
Years went by, and S and L tried to fix me up with S's boss, but inadvertently introduced me to his best friend instead, who I married almost 20 years ago. We continued to be close, both trying to get pregnant together. After struggling with multiple fibroid surgeries, S finally got pregnant shortly after my husband and I had two little girls. We were all ecstatic and drove down to the hospital for baby Rebecca's birth. But there was something horribly wrong. Apparently S was a carrier of an extremely rare recessive gene and their sperm donor was too. The baby had a horrible syndrome that meant that she was blind, deaf, had no grey cells in her brain, muscular dystrophy, and would definitely die within weeks due to failure of her brain to control her organ functions.
We grieved together during the 31 days it took for poor Rebecca to pass. During that time, L. was the ultimate in loving support to S., always being there for S., comforting her, constantly consoling her and telling her it wasnt' her fault when she wanted to blame herself, taking infinitely gentle care of this small damaged baby until she slipped away. During that time, S's parents finally began to accept L's place in S's life and embrace her as their daughter-in-law. My husband and I will always feel that Rebecca's purpose in life was to cement that bond between S's parents and L. And despite the fact that many marriages are torn apart by the death of a child, S and L grew closer together.
Later, S gave birth to a gorgeous boy, and my husband and I were the Christian sponsors at this little Jewish boy's Bris. Perfect at first, he developed Tourette's syndrome, possibly due to strep infections and possibly due to vaccinations. S and L's union grew stronger under the onslaught of trouble. They took their son to therapy, to various specialists, to special schools. They learned his rhythms and what would control his "ticking" the best and help him to cope.
They decided to adopt for child number three, and adopted a girl from Guatemala. She was healthy, happy, and turned out to have learning disabilities. S and L soldiered on and grew stronger together, laughing and forming a even closer family.
Their son made his Bar Mitzvah. Their daughter developed an amazing art talent. We went together with them on a cruise, and they went on many many more vacations with her parents and with the gay male friend R. they had decided to include in their extended family as "Dad" to the kids.
Yet they were not allowed to get married.
Finally, the law was changed. They COULD get married in California. At first, they didn't seem to care. They weren't sure after all these years if it mattered any more. But now, with Prop 8 rearing its ugly head, they decided to take a stand, to take their rights before they could be snatched away.
And so, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of their solitary commitment ceremony in Hawaii, surrounded by family and friends in their own backyard, under a Huppa (sp??) made by L., they got married. When S. walked down the aisle on her widowed mother's arm and L. walked down the aisle on their friend R's arm, I started to sob. The background of the election, the possibility that for other couples this right to create and honor their own beautiful families could be taken away, and the incredibly emotional history that S and L have been through together all came up in one big hiccuping burst of emotion. Only the thought that I would ruin their ceremony kept me from totally losing it.
So today, I honor my friends S and L (and honor their privacy in this diary by not using their full names, even though it's been hard not to!)
And tomorrow, I'm going to go sign up to phonebank for NO ON 8. Please, donate if you can to this worthy cause. No one should be prevented from marrying the one they love.