One of Annabel Lee‘s readers illustrates, with her gut-wrenching story, what exactly is at stake in the fight for marriage equality. Many thanks to her for her willingness to share this.
In 1985, I was living in Syracuse, New York, having just finished attending University. I majored in business management, and quickly found work in Washington, D.C. with a consulting firm. My life consisted of working and taking care of injured animals at a local shelter. It was at the animal shelter that I met Karen.
Karen and I became fast friends. I was open about my sexuality while in college. After six months of hanging out together, tossing back a few drinks at the clubs, going to movies, hanging out watching silly movies on VHS tape from the video store, we started talking. Karen revealed to me that she was a lesbian, but wasn’t out about it. She said that her family wouldn’t understand, but that she was very attracted to me. I told her that I was attracted to her, and we started dating in secret.
Two years passed, with us living in separate places but hanging out constantly, when we decided I should move in with her. She owned a small home in Alexandria, Virginia. I would commute into D.C., while she would walk to the animal shelter from her house. This went on until 1991, when the animal shelter closed and relocated to Springfield.
Karen bought a car and began driving into work, while I continued climbing the ladder at my job, eventually running into the glass ceiling. I was making a comfortable living, and Karen was able to express her passion for animals. I still volunteered at the shelter on the weekends. It was quality time with the woman I loved, while a break from the corporate grind.
In 1992, we relocated to Maryland. Karen sold her house in Virginia, and we purchased a new home in College Park. We were able to ride the Metro to work, and the neighborhood was friendly. We also began looking into adoption to start a family. We knew that we couldn’t get married, but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t be a family.
Even with the friendlier laws in Maryland, we were turned away time and again by adoption agencies for being a “nontraditional” couple. It was code for being lesbians. We expected it, having heard stories from others. We began looking into international adoptions, and if we could qualify. We found a broker in China who stated that if we could come to China, pay the fee, and go through their rigorous background process, we could adopt a three-year old girl named Mei-Xing.
Within seven months, we were now parents. We worked around the clock to help Mei-Xing learn English, and prepare her for school. I kept working in the city, while Karen opted to be a stay-at-home mom. Mei-Xing picked up English quickly and was well prepared for school to start.
While I was in Atlanta on a work venture, Karen was supposed to take Mei-Xing to the store for school clothes and supplies. It was August 18, 1994. My phone rang at 3:52 P.M. from Georgetown Medical Center. I answered it. It was a receptionist calling me telling me that my “friend and her daughter” were in a car wreck. I was listed as the emergency contact for Karen with the hospital. Since I was not family, the receptionist wouldn’t tell me why Karen was in the hospital, or what happened with my daughter.
I hopped on the first flight back to D.C., landing at just after 8:30 P.M. at Dulles International. I hailed a taxi and went straight to the hospital. When I arrived, it was almost 10 P.M.
I walked up to the counter to a nurse, who was no help. If I wasn’t family, she couldn’t tell me anything. Annoyed and frustrated, I tried another nurse, and another. I couldn’t even find out what room my family was in, or why they were there. I found a doctor, who pointed me towards another receptionist. She was equally no help. Frustrated, I called Karen’s brother, Harold, who lived in New York City.
I told him what was going on, as best I could between the tears. He told me to calm down, and that he would be down in the morning to sort everything out. I waited in the lobby, flagging down everyone, only to be told that patient information can only be released to family. According to the District of Columbia, Karen and I were not family. Mei-Xing was listed as Karen’s daughter with the hospital, so I couldn’t find out about her condition either.
Sleep didn’t come. I waited in the lobby until almost noon, stressed, fatigued and annoyed at the situation I was in. I saw Harold come bounding through the doors. He didn’t seem overly concerned with the situation. He nodded towards the receptionist, and I followed him.
The nurse immediately began talking to Harold. Karen had been in a car accident. A semi had crossed lanes and hit the vehicle head on. Karen had multiple broken bones, a fractured skull, brain swelling and internal bleeding. Mei-Xing has a punctured lung and broken ribs. Both had been in surgery all night. Harold nodded and the nurse stated both were in recovery. They were in the same room, and she led us to that room.
We waited in the room. One hour passed, no news. Two hours, three. We kept waiting. Five hours after we were put in the room, a stern-faced doctor came into the room. My heart sank at the sight of him. He told me to wait in the hallway, as I was not family. On the outside of the room, I started crying. The doctor walked past a few minutes later. Harold came outside and hugged me tightly.
“They didn’t make it,” he whispered in my ear. The tears fell faster, with more loss contained in them. We stood there, in one another’s arms for ten minutes or more. I was completely at a loss. He told me to go home, and he would be by later.
Harold handled the family matters, including the funeral arrangements. Karen’s family came into town, and held a funeral. They did not allow me to attend for hers, or Mei-Xing’s. It was heartbreaking. I held my own ceremony afterwards. I was invited to the will reading, something I had insisted Karen do after adopting our daughter. Karen left everything she owned to me. Her parents challenged it. The courts sided against me.
Her parents forced me to sell the house, as Karen owned 50 percent of it. Harold protested on my behalf, but we weren’t to have anything. I was mourning the loss of my love, and now was homeless. I stayed in a hotel for a few nights, before moving into a small apartment in Silver Springs. Even the small one-bedroom apartment felt empty without my loved ones.
Had the laws been different, I would have been able to talk with those doctors. I would have been able to deal with my emotions and understand what happened from the doctors. I would have been able to see my family one last time, even if they were no longer with me in life. I would have been able to keep the family home, and the warmth of the people I loved amongst those walls. If the laws were different, I would have lived a different life.
Seventeen years have passed since that dark era of my life. I have no dated since. I have no interest in finding someone else. No one will replace Karen or Mei-Xing. I still live in the same apartment I rented following the sale of the house. I still have photos and assorted knickknacks from my ladies. I cry myself to sleep still, though it’s much rarer than it was before.
I support marriage equality, not because I want to be married again. I support it because I don’t want any family – gay or straight – to go through what I did. I don’t want any human being to go through the pain, the loss and the misery I have. It doesn’t matter who you love, so long as you love. I loved, and I lost. I don’t want to ever suffer that again. No one should.
This isn’t about marriage. It’s about the same freedoms and opportunities. It doesn’t matter if you call it marriage, civil union, domestic partnership. Those are just words. Give us the same rights as others. Let us talk to our families doctors, and have our wills be valid. Allow us to adopt children and provide them loving homes and opportunities they won’t find in foster care.
You don’t have to accept our lifestyle. You don’t have to believe that we will go to heaven. You don’t have to allow us to marry in your churches. Just let us have the same rights you have, because our families mean just as much to us as your family does to you.
520 Chestnut 
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