I rode Colin’s favorite horse this morning and it was incredible. That would normally be the high point of the day, but today was in no way a normal day.

First, marriage equality. I married Jeremy in 2000 because I had secure visa status in the US, and he didn’t. The fear of him being deported was untenable. It was the vulnerability of migration that opened my eyes to what marriage is; it is forcing the state to recognize your found family. That definition of marriage was the gift of the people we lost to AIDS, whose partners were sometimes barred from the deathbed. Legal marriage means that your love matters, that it must be taken into account.

It’s hard, maybe impossible to convey to my own children just how staggering it is that we are here; how many people fought and died for this.

And even that wasn’t the high point of the day. The murderer of the Charlston 9 wanted a race war, not the occasion of maybe the most profound and beautiful moment of Obama’s presidency.

Grace is the unlooked-for gift, the undeserved kindness, a green shoot growing in the desert. Amazing.

Posted in grief, happiness, history, nerdcore marriage, politics | Comments Off on grace

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