House of the Muses

It has been the most trying two months of my life, this year. I haven’t been posting or Tweeting too much because I never know if our son will read my posts, and it’s our wish to keep him safe. Not a great idea to convey bad news to a young soldier on the field of combat in Afghanistan, so the news creeps from the shadowed, cobwebby corners after all is said and done, and hopefully happily resolved.

On August 24th I lost one of my best friends, a woman my partner and I knew for almost 20 years, whom our son knew as Aunt Kathy. She’d been having a series of strokes, and one afternoon in June she fell to another and was rushed to the hospital. In the emergency room she had the final one, and coded. Kathy went into a coma from which she never recovered.

Her partner Paula was almost shattered. In all of the 35 years they had been together, Kathy had made all the decisions, so the day we got the phone call we knew what we were in for. All those other people who had claimed to be their best friends for years had disappeared: it was just us; me, my partner and Paula. Kathy and Paula had not put their affairs in order, and we were stuck with a dysfunctional, self-absorbed family who did little to assist Kathy. One sister blew in and out without ever granting Paula any legal rights to her partner’s medical care whatsoever. She did manage to pay the funeral home for the cremation and other necessities, took Paula’s cell phone and went home, heading back to Arizona. We endured the nonsense, kept Paula fed and balanced as she spent night after night at her partner’s bedside.

So aye, there’s the rub: What was one of the saddest, most painful and depressing times of one’s life–burying a partner and a friend, particularly when my partner and I are in our mid-40s and our friend in question was at the tender age of 53–what was already an incredibly difficult time for all of us was made infinitely worse by the self-absorption and stupidity of her own family. Only her baby sister is exempt from the above words…the rest have angered and frustrated me no end.

This is why there needs to be equal marriage rights in America. If there must be injustice, you who commit to one another make sure to get your paperwork together. Even the most liberal of families (as Kathy’s was) will let you down when you need them in the end if you don’t. A time or two I vented online, and my Twitter friends were there for me.

And I noticed these well-wishes today from my friends across the sea in the Netherlands, at EurOut.org:

As the summer holidays end and everyone gets back to work or goes back to school, we bring you the sixth edition of our monthly magazine; to ease the pain. This issue is chock-full of Gay Games goodness, interesting articles and an exclusive interview with the women behind the new Dutch series Heet Gras. The only thing missing in this issue is Pam Harrison‘s awesome comic due to very tragic personal circumstances. Our thoughts are with her.

I’ve had best wishes from so many venues these past couple months, from my comic sites, from Facebook, from all my lovely followers on Twitter around the world. With such touching well-wishes from folks I have never met, I can hardly help but accept your prayers and wishes and wait patiently for the sunrise. This too shall pass, and I’ll be back as good as new.

Thank you each and every one.

Pam Harrison, September 2, 2010

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