Weddings and benefits

Since December 6, it's been difficult in Seattle to avoid images of happy same-sex couples displaying newly acquired marriage licenses or walking jubilantly down the courthouse steps after saying their vows. In many conversations I've had in a variety of settings and contexts, someone will casually mention that they were married this afternoon or can't attend a meeting Thursday evening because that's when they're getting married. All around me is an air of celebration.

I managed at first to focus on the political and legal aspects of the issue, distracting myself from the personal stories. When others brought them up, I changed the subject. The stories aren't foreign to me; I've been blessed to hear them during the years I've worked on this issue. They have moved me in the past, but those same stories leave me resentful now. And I don't like that about myself. I want to feel happy for those people. I worked for their rights as well as my own, and I value their relationships. However, right now, their exuberance is a reminder of my loss, and I'm jealous. Better just to avoid all of it as much as possible.

I felt the loss most acutely last Sunday, our seventeenth anniversary. Had Sandy lived, we almost certainly would have chosen to marry that day, even though it would have meant moving the ceremony inside due to cold, wet weather. I spent the day feeling sorry for myself, wallowing in regrets and wishing for what can never be.

A good night's sleep and a reassuring dream helped me remember how lucky I am to have loved and been loved by Sandy, how fortunate I am that she's still such a presence in my life, and how miraculous it is that our marriage will be retractively recognized years after her death. We won't have our wedding, but the marriage we already knew we had will be a matter of legal record. It's just a matter of time now, just a little over 18 months before that recognition occurs.

I've been looking forward to June 30, 2014, as the date that Sandy's deathbed wish will be fulfilled, but I saw the recognition as largely symbolic. It's coming too late for me to receive the benefits and consideration I should have received as a widow, after all, even if DOMA has fallen by then. The options I had for the IRA I inherited were much more limited than they would have been; I received no Social Security death benefit; over and over again, I had to report that I was making arrangements or settling matters as a "non-spouse." Those are insults that won't be washed away.

But it turns out that this legal recognition of our marriage may yet have some practical benefit that hadn't occurred to me. Assuming the third part of DOMA is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2013 or Congress eventually repeals it, I may yet be able to claim some benefits as Sandy's widow.

There are many married couples in this picture from the Sides family reunion
in July 2007, taken just a few weeks before we were able to register as
domestic partners. When our RDP is converted, our marriage will have
an effective date of July 25, 2007, and once DOMA disappears, it will
be treated equally to all those other marriages.

I'd thought my inability to claim her Social Security benefits inconsequential, as mine are higher than hers anyway. But then I read an article in a random financial newsletter this week. (I don't even subscribe to it; they just sent me a sample, and it'd been sitting on the coffee table. When I cleaned off the coffee table, I flipped through it.)

The article outlined all the ways a widow or widower might choose to claim benefits, depending on their own earnings and their spouse's earnings. It's just possible that it would make sense for me to claim Sandy's benefits at an earlier age (say, 62), when I'd be able to receive just a percentage of them, and then to hold off on claiming my own until I reach the age that provides the maximum benefit, at which point I'd switch. I'd read about this flexibility in the past, but never thought it would affect me - either because Sandy hadn't yet died when I read about it or because she'd died before our marriage was recognized.

But now I realize that, with our marriage a matter of legal record, effective four years before she died, if DOMA is no longer in place, there's no reason I wouldn't be able to claim the benefits just as any other widow does. I don't know whether it will make sense financially to do so, or even whether Social Security will work in the same way eighteen years from now. But I do know that it feels amazing to realize that the time is coming that our relationship will be seen in the same light as the marriages of our friends and family members. That whether I claim Sandy's benefits will depend on my financial situation, Social Security rules, whether I've remarried, and other things that affect everyone -- not the fact that Sandy and I were both women. That's huge. I don't even know if I can convey how huge that is. And that realization gave me my own little celebration. I'm so grateful that our relationship will soon be granted the equal status that Sandy craved for it. And that it's just possible she'll have the opportunity to take care of me once again, something I know would make her very happy.