Yesterday, I received an email from a company I did business with several years ago. They were trying to update their files and asked that we reply with current contact information. I didn't recognize the name of the sender and since I no longer have any projects with them, I ignored the email.
But it tickled the back of my mind for most of the day.
Before Olivia was born, I was a buyer for a well known retailer. I first met the X family when they called on me trying to sell their products. Mrs. X had started the company with her two sons, Sam and Junior. Tragically, Junior died of cancer the year after we met. Sam took over most operational duties and as the company grew, he settled into the role of CEO. He was a dynamic, smart and prescient leader. The company flourished as did my relationship with the family.
After I left the retailer, I kept in touch with Sam and his mum. In my new job, we had the opportunity to once again collaborate on a deal. Then, the unthinkable happened.
While waiting in an airport lounge to head overseas on business, Sam collapsed. An undetected brain aneurysm had ruptured. He nearly died. For weeks, he lay in a hospital bed in a strange city. His parents and siblings flew in to be by his side. At some point after the initial rupture, Sam suffered a stroke. Although he survived, he never fully recovered.
Obviously, the implications for the business were profound. Both Mrs. X and her husband stepped back into the day to day operations and assumed leadership roles. It was a very difficult time. We spoke once in a while and each time I hung up, my heart ached for the family. It was bad enough to lose one son to cancer. To find yourself in your late seventies as caretakers for your other, newly incapacitated son was awful.
And that is about all I knew of the situation. So, when I received the email from a sender whose name I didn't recognize, I googled the company. Sure enough, there was a news items describing the sale of the X family business to a group of investors. I had been expecting news of that sort since Sam's illness. What I didn't anticipate was the other information that popped up. It seems the family was embroiled in a legal battle over the guardianship of Sam.
With Sam's partner of twenty five years.
Sam was gay. I never knew.
And why should I, right? Why am I so blown away by this information? It's not like he ever questioned me about who I was shagging. I cringe now at some of the conversations that we had had where I encouraged him to try to balance his life by finding a nice girl and settling down. After all, he wasn't getting any younger and was working too much, I felt. I was such a tool, especially when in retrospect, I see that he handled those conversations with such grace. "Haven't yet found the right woman," he's say.
But reading about the legal battle was very upsetting. Mrs. X was deeply religious and believed Sam's "lifestyle" to be an abomination. She felt Sam's partner, Jack, had ruined their lives and told him so. After the aneurysm, Jack flew to the hospital and was denied visitation with the man with whom he had spent the last quarter century. Mrs. X told him that she would rather that Sam not recover than to see him get well and return to "sin".
Wow.
The trouble was that Sam and Jack had never protected their interests as a gay couple with the legal provisions that existed in their state. I'm sure they never gave it a second thought believing that in the event of a tragedy, their union would be respected. Not so.
I love Mrs. X and while I understand her commitment to her faith, I cannot reconcile her words and actions concerning Sam with the woman that I once knew. To me, the whole situation is just one horrid thing piled on the next. It's incredibly sad.
I hope the court grants Jack guardianship so that he and Sam can continue with the life that they had carved out together, albeit differently than they had anticipated.
I hope that Mrs. X finds peace.
3 comments:
Wow. That's the problem eh? No one ever realizes how screwed up things can get after you die. Jeff had been a financial planner and an investment consultant for 35 years when he died in 2002. He left his estate in a mess. Only now, 7 years later, did the last law suit settle last January. People need to get their affairs in order so stuff like this doesn't happen. I still know people with assets and kids and blended families that are professionals with no wills!!!! Dumb.
..and I realize a lot of this has to do with the lack of legal rights for gay people but a lot of that personal care/visitation refusal by the family nonsense can be circumvented with a living will, in some states. At least here it can in Canada. But then we allow gay marriage and all the rights afforded therein. People are such judgmental assholes.
I've wondered and wondered ever since you posted this if the partner had indeed been given visitation rights, etc.
It never suprises me how people react in any given situation. Lashing out in anger and non-understanding of a situation often is the wrong choice in the end, but for them they feel it is the right choice at the time. Retrospect usually brings them around, but it is usually way too late. Sad. Very sad. For everyone involved.
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