Time with Jan: A TRULY rewarding experience
Yesterday, I got a call from Barb, who was on GLAD's board way back when I first started working there. Barb told me that Jan, the ED who hired me in '93, has multiple myeloma and her time left is being measured "in weeks not months."
FUCK. I've had enough of fucking cancer. This very weekend, my partner Sue is away at her father's caring for him as he is dying from pancreatic cancer, and one of my favorite aunts in Maine, the woman who named me, is battling lung cancer. Sue lost her mother about 2 or 3 years before we met to breast cancer. Even my "surrogate dog," my co-worker's 4 year bull mastiff, Mackenzie, has cancer and is undergoing chemo and radiation! I Enough already! Please!
I knew that Jan had battled cancer before. Barb said Jan underwent a stem cell transplant last November that was a pretty rigourous thing to go thru on it's own, but beyond that, it failed. Jan is experiencing a tremendous amount of pain.
They were chatting "old times" and Jan asked Barb to get in touch with me, to tell me what's going on.
I have a profound amount of respect and admiration for Jan. She and I reveled in our shared sarcasm. I had a black coffee cup that I drank from during our time together at GLAD. It had a big, grumpy yellow cat that said, "I'd whistle while I work, but all I know are happy songs." GLAD was going thru some rough times back then, both as an organization and personally, so working there was often excruciating, but still VERY rewarding. When she left GLAD, she gave me a rubber stamp that says, "A lack of planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part," and a toy that looks like a beeper. It has 3 buttons that produce different sounds. One is a "Missle Launcher," one a "Tommy Gun" and finally, a "Death Ray." I know, an odd toy for someone who aspires to a pacifist, but sometimes when you hang up the phone after an especially difficult call, nothing is more satisfying than "annilating" your phone. I keep these toys on my pc at work my current job. (Another GLAD souvenir is a set of chattering teeth that hopped on feet until they broke from over-use. But that was a gift from Jacob Smith Yang~ the AIDS Law Proj Advocate. It was a treasure he got from Delta Dental when he spoke at a conference about how dentists cannot deny treatment to HIV+ people. Anyway, I digress.) We liked to play at GLAD.
Jan was a good leader, and a good friend. I admired her, and my other fellow co-workers at GLAD, for doing the right things, for doing so much actually. I feel honored that Jan wanted Barb to get in touch with me. I guess it's just that at GLAD I worked with such extraordinary people, they inspired the best in me. I have never worked harder, never given my all for anything more than I did GLAD.
Today, I called her to see if she was up for a visitor. Her partner Carol answered and said Jan was sleeping, but to come in to see her anyway.
I arrived sometime around 2:30 or 3. I was expecting to stay ½ an hour or so, sure she would tire easily. I was in my best Sunday schlubby clothes: jeans, long-sleeved t-shirt, my favorite, big, thick blue polar fleece that a certain sports fan in my life (my Tweetie Bird) gave me as a gift. What I didn't expect was that this would be one of the most memorable afternoons of my life!
I couldn't go in to Jan's room right away, because she was dressing. I went to the sitting room and found Carol on the pc. She was searching for a way to contact the Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie of the Arlington Street Church. Carol and Jan had talked to Kim about marrying them, and today was the day! Carol needed to call The Rev to confirm the ceremony and was having a hard time finding her phone number. I took over for her at the pc and let her go out to get some air and run some errands.
By the time I had found the Rev and left her a message to confirm that she was going to come perform the ceremony, Jan was ready for visitors. I went into her room and found her in her bed in a beautiful silky green blouse, accessorised by a nicely embroidered hat. For a dying woman, she did look marvelous! She informed me that today was her wedding day and that she would be so happy if I could be one of the very few who could attend this special function. Again, I felt deeply honored.
As I visited with Jan, she told me about Carol's proposal, the rapidly approaching wedding, and the wedding celebration that is to take place on April 2nd at one of my favorite restaurants, Clem & Ursie's, in p'town. She told me about her family coming to visit and reminded me how monumental that was for them as, like many families, they've had their difficulties.
My cell phone gave me a jump. Julie Netherland, our fellow former co-worker at GLAD had received the message I'd left her this a.m. and was returning my call. I put Jan on the phone with Julie and listened as Jan filled her in on what she'd just told me, and as they reminisced about GLAD, good times and the tough motherfuckers. [We lost one co-worker to suicide... outside my office window, and THAT is a completely different, harrowing story for another day.]
Other friends trickled in... Woody & Wendy, then a lesbian couple, already I'm blanking on their names. Then the Rev arrived. We allowed the 3 of them a few moments to talk privately to prepare for the service. Then the 5 of us were summonsed back to the room. A couple nurses joined us, and The Reverend Kim performed the ceremony.
I held it together at the wedding, just getting my usually misty/sniffly/sappy during the reading of a portion of the decision from GLAD's Goodridge case, which has been read at each gay wedding I've attended. Every time I hear it, it does bring tears to my eyes. This time, I had a very difficult time keeping these ones from turning into a river.
This is why I had done it. All those years... stuffing millions of envelopes, phonebanking, helping with appeals, planning fundraising events even though I lack the "fabulous gene," proofreading, designing, printing, copying, fixing antiquated pc's and aging photocopiers. Kissing asses that deserved to have a boot driven up them about knee deep. Staying so very late night after night, working so many weekends, sacrificing time with my partner or our own families, missing weddings and other important events. I did it to help protect and expand the legal rights of the GLBT community. To help GLBT families secure the rights to protect themselves, in good times and bad, in good health AND IN SICKNESS. That whole time, I'm picturing folks who need GLAD's help in situations EXACTLY like that one. Never thought I'd witness one; never thought IF I DID, it'd be for someone I respect and care about like this. A woman who HERSELF put so much into it and helped make such things possible! To see it go full circle... it was one of the most electrifying and memorable experiences of my life! It connected all the dots... full circle!
Standing at the bed of my terminally ill friend, I witnessed the fruition of our work together, the sanctity of legal marriage bestowed upon two women who had loved one another for years, so that they could now take care of one another when they needed to the most. The ability to take part in such an important human activity has been a legal option for women like us for little more than 9 months.
I had gone to the hospital, yes, dreading it some, knowing it would be difficult. Thinking I would visit for just a half hour or so. Who knew it would be one of the most memorable days in my life. Ok, you could say that I've been watching too much of the Hallmark or Lifetime channels, but I'm not a big tv watcher these days. But I do realize what a gift today was!
I'm beat. Off to bed I go. Best wishes to Jan and Carol!
