Love Demands Open Windows

In the coolness of the early morning hours, Tammy awoke to find her lover of ten years and still best friend standing in front of the open window. "Are you crazy, Bug? It must be twenty below zero out there!"

"Morning, silly woman," Michele responded as she slid the window pane into the closed position. "Your coffee is in the microwave. Are you ready for it?"

Tammy nodded as she snuggled further down under the two blankets that they kept on the bed, the two blankets that every morning lay in a heap on her side -- two blankets and one open window -- one of the easier compromises that the two of them had come up with over the years to bridge the differences that could have easily wreaked havoc on their relationship. "It's a good thing I know that you love me so much," she grinned in her spouse's direction, "or I would swear that you were trying to freeze me to death!"

"Maybe I am," Michele half whispered as she placed the steaming coffee on the nightstand and settled in beside the woman that she adored. "Maybe I am trying to find a way to preserve us both forever."

Tammy knew instantly where the conversation was going, and she didn't want to have it again. It scared her, made her want to run away and hide. Instead, she looked into the eyes of the woman who had taught her (and who continued to teach her) love, and patience, and endurance, the only woman that she had ever given herself over to completely, heart and soul, and she listened. When Michele was finished telling her how important it was to her that she promise to find someone else if anything happened to her, that she didn't want her to remain alone because of a memory, Tammy raised her arm and invited her concerned lover into the safety of her embrace.

"You aren't going anywhere, you know. I won't let you. The electrocardiogram will show that everything is fine. And, even if it doesn't, we will deal with it using the same strength that allowed us to survive the raising of four children through the teenage years, the same strength that allowed us to work through the loss of your brother and mother and my father and stepfather, the same strength that allowed us to ignore the cries of our friends who said we had nothing in common with which to bond a relationship, and the same strength that has allowed us to work through the stares and comments from those who don't know anything about our relationship or our family."

Within moments, the sounds of slightly labored breathing let Tammy know that her love had found comfort in her words. And as she watched the movements of Michele's bare stomach, partly because she was still amazed at how beautiful she found this woman, but also because she wanted to make sure that the breathing was steady, even, alive, she wondered to herself how this woman had won her heart so quickly and so thoroughly that long ago rainy April night.

"It was as if I went from being the single mom of two to the married woman and mother of six in the moment that it took for us to be introduced," she said to no one in particular. "This is my best friend, Tammy," she remembered Karen saying, "and this is Michele."

Back then the differences had seemed so big and different. The age difference between the two of them -- eleven years, and between their children -- hers were 7 and 9, and she was getting ready to add a third -- a baby that she desperately wanted and that her sister couldn't care for.

Michele's were 12, 13, and 16 -- the oldest only ten years her junior. Tammy lived in Colorado and had just come here to await the birth of her son. Michele had never lived anywhere but here, two thousand miles outside of Denver, and her children were almost grown. Their religious beliefs, or Michele's religious beliefs and her own lack thereof, were also miles apart. On top of all of that, Michele owned a house, for goodness sake. Tammy never wanted to own anything. It made life much too complicated, too inflexible. She knew that she was no good at this relationship stuff; she had been a free-spirit for forever.

But despite all that, and despite all the objections from family and friends, Tammy had known what she needed to do. She quit her job and moved in, kids and all, with Michele. She knew there were no years, no time, separating them. There was only a love so strong and so deep that it had to be acknowledged, allowed, accepted as so.

Tammy's eyes opened briefly, checking again for the steady breath of her life partner, before allowing her mind to race forward, catching and splicing together snippets of time. Days, months, and years, all filled with exploration and confrontation of the differences between them -- differences that seemed to become most apparent through the eyes of others.

First and foremost, it seemed, was the difference others saw in their sameness -- "Lesbians raising children," some would whisper, "what is this world coming to?" "No you may not spend the night in THAT house. Who knows what goes on in there!" --

One memory was still painful enough to remain within reach. A mother and father, names long ago forgotten, forbade their daughter from entering the house and from interacting with the girls. The late night phone calls from a drunken father sprung to the surface: "How can you call yourselves parents? You should be hung for having children in that house of sin. I will beat the #%&@ out of my daughter if I ever catch her near there again."

Other adults meandered through her mind, as well: outsiders who made up worlds to put them into -- like the photographer that made Michele the baby's grandmother because two moms didn't/couldn't fit, and even the people closest to them, people who claimed to have accepted both the age difference and the lesbianism, but after ten years still introduced them as friends.

"But through it all," she added as a footnote to her awakening self, "we have held tight to the idea that, by offering others an open window into our world, all will eventually see and understand that there is nothing wrong with any lifestyle that embraces love and family togetherness." And to her still sleeping spouse, she whispered, "You are my world, and if you remain by my side for twenty more years or must leave in twenty days, we will never be without one another, here, in our hearts."