We're getting married!

Sandy will get her wish posthumously, after all. In July, after we learned she had only a few weeks left, she asked me if I thought that we'd be married whenever the legislature finally managed to pass a marriage equality bill. I told her I didn't think it worked that way: You can't consent to a marriage posthumously, and I didn't think it would be retroactive. Turns out, I was wrong!

Unable to sleep last night, my mind stumbled back over a reference I'd read to the marriage bill our governor signed a few weeks ago. Domestic partnerships would convert to marriages in 2014 if the parties hadn't already married. I'd noted it for political reasons (there are many activists who believe the state should offer both options to all people), but not thought it would affect us. After all, Sandy's dead. I didn't think the state would recognize our partnership anymore.

I grew curious as I lay there, any hope of sleep fading quickly. How did they know she was dead? Is our registered domestic partnership still valid? It didn't end at the moment of death; many of the rights that go with it, just as with marriage, come into play when one of the parties dies.

Look at that happy couple! In 2014, we can look at this photo
and say we'd already been married nearly three years then.

I grabbed the iPad, which I keep next to the bed for just such emergencies, and looked us up on the secretary of state's website. We're still there, listed with an active registered domestic partnership. Further poking around revealed that to change that, I'd need to send in a termination form with a death certificate; I'm not going to do that. So there's no reason to think that our partnership would be inactive on June 30, 2014, when the conversions take place. Boom! We'll be married.

And it's even better than that. At that point, the state will consider the date of our marriage to be the date we registered as domestic partners. That was July 25, 2007, the day after the domestic partnership law went into effect. As of June 30, 2014, we will officially already have been legally married almost four years before Sandy died.

I'd rather have her here with me, married or not married, ill or healthy. But at least this bucket-list item can still happen for her. She's here enough that I know she's both aware of my revelation (and my related glee) and will be able to be present on June 30, 2014, for whatever reception or party we hold to celebrate the recognition of our legal marriage in our home state. And yes, you're all invited!