On January 24th, 2006, the world became permanently darker for me. That was the day that my dearest Rachel succumbed to the cancer she had been fighting against for the previous 8 months.
This diary is intended as a way to help me keep her memory alive.
I have actually written a bit about Rachel here before:
Back Story
We met sometime in 2001, if memory serves. It was an interesting encounter. She had just fled to Iowa from Texas when her job with MCI in Austin was moved to Cedar Rapids. This happened to coincide with her own transition from male to female. Let's just say that things were...uneasy...at home when she began her transition. In all fairness, I can empathize with and understand the feelings of her ex. When a transperson marries before they come to terms with their gender identity issues, they are essentially changing the terms of a contract with their spouse. In my opinion, that gives the spouse every right to nullify that contract. Put another way, many women who marry men do so because they are attracted to men. If it later turns out that the male-resembling person they married is actually female, can they be faulted for leaving?
Back to the main thread: She was still hurting from her 'forced exile' (her words) when we met. I was just recently out of my own closet. Really, I looked like a guy in a dress. Not the most flattering. I look at photos of myself from that time and shudder. We encountered one another, and hit it off like fire and gasoline. She had little time for and no interest in a person who looked like an ongoing train wreck.
Fast forward a few months. I had joined a support group for folks exploring alternative approaches to gender identity at the University of Iowa. After I had been there a few months, Rachel started showing up once in a while. By that time she had moved in with Rei and her wife. The gender variant community in Eastern Iowa is not particularly large, so it was fairly inevitiable we would encounter one another again. By this time, her attitudes had settled somewhat, and my own issues were less visually traumatizing. We became friends, hanging out with many of the same people.
This continued for a year or so. I started taking hormones, and gradually finished coming out. I was in mandated therapy (ah yes, those fun gatekeepers). In order to receive the health care needed to transition, one must be diagnosed as mentally ill, and then be treated for it by one therapist and signed off on by a second. For a more exhaustive list of the stuff we go through, click the WPATH SOC link here (PDF warning).
Then, November 11th, 2001 came along.
It started out as a typical night. My ex and I were going to meet 3 of my friends and go out to the Alley Cat (gay bar in Iowa City) for an evening of average fun. My ex, who will be late to her own funeral, decided at the last minute (and after making us late) that she didn't wish to go. I was a tad miffed, and things had been deteriorating between us for quite some time. See above. This set my emotional state to an unusually open one. I arrived at my friend's condo, knocked and walked in. Something very unusual happened next. Rachel, who was ever known as a most playful person, jumped out of Sandy's kitchen and said 'Boo!' I was just startled enough that I saw her in an entirely new light, with entirely new eyes in that split second. I'm pretty sure i fell in love with her right then and there. But I am a cautious soul. We went out as a group, and began our evening. Rachel and I had always been flirtatious, sometimes even with each other. Tonight was different. Fairly early, I leaned forward and stated quite directly that I wasn't kidding. Her eyes got as big as saucers as she asked, "Are you serious?"
I'll skip a bit, for brevity's sake. I separated from my ex, we dated, moved in together, and emigrated to Minnesota in spring 2002. Rachel got to know my kids, and we went to Texas for her daughter's high school graduation.
That was a really weird trip in several ways. I met Rachel's mother and hit it off rather well. Her sister and children came by. We ended up changing our plans and spending the night in Dallas, since we were having such a nice visit. We drove down to Austin the next day and things got strange. First, I wasn't invited to any of the events. I'm pretty good at entertaining myself, so that wasn't that big a deal to me. I observed that Texas suffers from a lot of testosterone poisoning, as i was unable to walk down the street without some yahoo hooting and hollering at me. Again, no biggie.
What really upset me was the way Rachel got treated by her former inlaws. They referred to her in the third person, as if she had died. She said she felt like a ghost. Every night she came back broken, and I tried to patch her back up for another day. The trip did end on a positive note, however. I did get to meet her daughter before we flew back. I'll be calling her later today.
Our life was good, if financially difficult. Child support was a struggle. I had to choose not to fight for custody so i didn't burn up resources that my kids needed. My ex moved to Maine for no apparent reason, and I lost virtually all contact with the children for a time.
2004 rolled around. This would be the best year I've ever had. We had enough, and each other. We went to a most awesome conference in western Massachusetts, FCOW.
We hand a handfasting (pagan wedding) there.
Wedding pics:
Rachel on the left
A close moment
We took a vacation to Toronto that year, spending a week with the woman who married us. It was during that trip that the first cracks in my perfect world began to appear. I got a call from Maine. My son was in jail, and would be in court in just a few weeks. That is a story for another time. As a teaser, I will say that I spent several days in a car with two Republicans.
In November, I met the person who would become my GRS surgeon. At the same time, Rachel began noticing pain in her jaw. She didn't think much of it, and continued to suffer all winter. She started to self-medicate with alcohol, and eventually went to a TMJ specialist. She didn't trust doctors much, which I've written about previously. Nothing really helped, and she kept hurting worse and worse.
In mid May, 2005, I was able to send a large payment to my surgeon and make firm GRS plans for August 5th, 2005. A week later, just before Memorial Day, Rachel finally went to an oral surgeon who was to perform a procedure to force her jaw open. He thus became the first person to look at the back of her throat. He told us to get to an oncologist immediately.
She had a baseball-sized mass behind her left jaw, below the ear. She was an early-40s, non-smoking woman with no risk factors other than prior military service. She was dying.
Rachel started aggressive chemotherapy that summer. She lost her hair, and a horrible amount of weight. Things seemed to go into remission late in the fall, and we had at least some good times together again. She joined the chorus I was in, now defunct. Her hair started coming back, and some of the weight. I was also in the process of regaining custody of my daughter (another story, another time). To that end, we took a trip to Maine in December 2005.
One month before she passed. Also, the last time she saw my kids.
Breakfast in Maine
After we returned, she had a followup oncology appointment. After I returned from Maine for a third time, we got the news. It had returned. She was given the option of resuming chemotherapy. She declined. We engaged the services of a local hospice. She was to be sedated, and would slowly fade away over the dourse of days or weeks. To start this regimen, a person must first be admitted to a hospital, where the sedation is started and monitored.
She went in to Regions Hospital in St Paul on January 23rd, 2006. She never made it home.
Over the course of several hours, she gradually lost consciousness. Overnight her breathing became increasingly labored and eventually stopped. She had been in the hospital for 26 hours.
She extorted a promise from me, knowing that I would keep my word. I promised her I would not seek to end my own life. It's just as well. My daughter did need me, and there are others in my life now who also need me. I had no clue that a person could hurt so badly and not just drop dead. My memories of early 2006 are pretty spotty.
Not really sure how to end this. I miss her, every day. The time of year between Samhain (Halloween for you non-pagans) and January 24th is hard. I would close by saying that one can't know great joy without also experiencing great pain.
With Rachel, I've had both.