Grandmothers, Unmarried and in Love

I’m thrilled to be trading guest blog posts with writer Sally Bellerose. 

Today Sally posted my review of Operation Marriage on her blog. While I was reviewing Operation Marriage, I thought a lot about same-sex marriage rights, and about how those rights affect us all, gay or straight. But I didn’t think much about the choice to marry, a choice we can only have if the legal rights exist. Sally has written a beautiful, thought-provoking essay about the choice to marry–or not–which you can read below (the essay first appeared on the Bywater Books website).

Sally, who was awarded a Fellowship in Literature from the National Endowment for the Arts, told me that she’s thrilled to be a guest poster on my blog. But not as thrilled as I am to have her. We’re both thrilled that her new award-winning adult novel, The Girls Club, was just released from Bywater Books–it’s reviewed here by Publisher’s Weekly, and available at Amazon and your local bookseller.    

To enter for a chance to win a copy of The Girl’s Club, leave a comment on Sally’s blog. To enter for a chance to win Operation Marriage, click here and leave a comment on my blog. Winners will be announced Sunday!

Here’s Sally’s essay. Let me know what you think in a comment. And you can find more of Sally’s writing on her blog.

 

Grandmothers, Unmarried and in Love

Our four-year-old granddaughter Kennedy stands in our dining room with her hands on her hips. “You know, girls can get married, Memere and Teddy,” she informs us, in case we somehow missed her previous twenty assertions that her grandmothers can and should marry each other. Kennedy calls me Memere. She calls my spouse Teddy.

Kennedy is wearing the only dress I own, which she calls her wedding gown, a once bright blue, now graying, sleeveless number. Frankly, it hangs like a sack on her and is not her best look. Fortunately, with her ponytail bobbing as she hops around the room trying not to trip over yards of faded polyester, she is the most beautiful and talented bride ever to grace a ceremony. Despite the baggy dress, she looks divine each and every time she marries, which is often. Wedding is her favorite game. She is happy to marry any gender. And, to alarm the “same-sex marriage is a slippery slope” folks, she will, in a pinch, marry her beloved Lamby, a stuffed toy of dubious species.

Teddy and I have loved each other for decades. Ours is a committed til-death-do-us-part affection. Despite an offer from my beloved son and daughter-in-law to plan the ceremony, we have not taken the state of Massachusetts up on its offer to legally sanction our union.

Our reasons for not marrying are old-fashioned political ideas that exclude the State from overseeing personal relationships. My spouse and I support other peoples’ reasons for choosing to marry. We get it: when couples love each other, they often want to celebrate and have their relationship recognized. The social status of individuals belonging to a group that is allowed to marry is elevated and the financial incentives, such as greater access to health care and tax breaks, can’t be denied.

As for the religious aspect on matrimony, we don’t have much patience with people who foist spiritual views on private relationships. By our reckoning, the sacred aspect of sex, love, and coupling is all the more reason for the State to divorce itself from marriage. We have always considered the separation of Church and State a splendid idea. Few of our friends agree with us, but we take heart in the fact that our neighbors in The Live Free or Die New Hampshire House of Representatives is considering a bill (HB569) to privatize marriage. New Hampshire would not offer any couple a marriage license, but grant domestic partnerships to straight or gay couples, leaving the legal/contractual side to the State and the sacred covenant side to the religious, spiritual, or secular choices of the couple.

In May 2004, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that it was unconstitutional under our state’s constitution to allow only heterosexual couples the right to marry, and our same-sex-couple friends began marrying in droves. It was the spring of backyard barbeques, solemn Church services, and barefoot-on-the-beach clambakes to celebrate the legal wedlock of men and women in tuxes and women and men in yards of flowing shiny fabric. These gatherings were celebrations of the queer community’s acceptance as a legitimate part of society as well as ceremonies to honor the love of the brides or grooms. It was at one of these backyard potlucks that we became aware that the choice not to marry needed support. Some of the guests were distressed by the fact that Teddy and I decided not to partake of this historic moment by kneeling at the altar of matrimony. More than one couple was personally offended. The extreme pro-marriage position insists that if a couple can marry, said couple should marry—and if the couple don’t marry, one or both parties in the couple are not committed to the relationship.

Teddy and I are pro-choice marriage advocates. We made our calls to the State House supporting marriage equality even as we continued to lobby for universal health care and tax reform that offers fair tax burdens to all. We would like all people, in and out of coupled relationships, to share equitable tax burdens, universal health care, and egalitarian social footing. Why should marital status, or domestic partnership status for that matter, have any relationship to healthcare or taxes? Why should people who chose not to marry be penalized?

With the exception of our adorable matrimony-loving granddaughter, those who insist that it is our civic or spiritual responsibility to get married merely make us dig in our secular unmarried heels. Periodically, we do check in on each other, just to be sure: “So, you want to get married, honey?” This often happens while emptying the dishwasher or right before bed after we spit out the toothpaste. So far, the answer has always been, “No, thank you, dear.”

Wedding is not our favorite game, but grandmotherly love has us engaging in activities we had not previously considered. For example, who knew that making up Pinky Stinky Underwear songs with socks on our hands and tee shirts on our heads could be such fun? As Kennedy holds up the skirt of her gown and steadies herself into Timberlake boots, I ponder the miracle of her and her assertion, “Girls can get married.” Who can deny the civil rights gain in that statement? Kudos to Massachusetts for being the first state to offer same-sex couples the right to marry.

As I watch Kennedy stomp and twirl around the living room, hugging her couch cushion bride or groom, a pillow totally unworthy of her, I am filled with familial love, gratitude, and the notion that Teddy and I might be able to have our wedding cake and eat it, too. Almost seven years after the landmark Massachusetts ruling, Kennedy, who is now using her cushy partner for a drum, is pretty much the only person left who gives much thought to whether or not her grandmothers marry. And she’s in it for the party, not the politics. Helping the kids feel secure and happy is one argument for marriage.

I’m about to ask Teddy, “Why not a party?” Kennedy could wear a fancy dress in her actual size. Her dad could be best man. Her mom could be maid of honor. Including ourselves and her other six grandparents, we’d have a little crowd. Not a piece of paperwork, clergy, or a State official need be involved. We could get a bouquet of flowers from Stop and Shop for $9.99. We must have a couple of rings hanging around. It might be a hoot. We like parties. We like attention, food, music, gifts. Maybe we’d receive a Crockpot, a new model with a removable liner that can be put in the dishwasher.
But, I get ahead of myself. Kennedy and Teddy have not stood idle while I ruminated about wedding swag. The game of matrimony seems to be on hold for the moment. My two favorite girls are under the dining room table on their backs, giggling, Scotch-taping art to the bottom of the table, the Underbelly Cafe.

The curators crawl out. I start singing, “Going to the Chapel.” Teddy and I join hands and stroll around the dining room table while Kennedy belts it out, singing into a flashlight microphone. Teddy takes the handmade doily my Memere tatted seventy years ago off the coffee table and puts it on her head. “Lovely,” Kennedy says. I grab a walking cane my mother carved during her whittling phase. Kennedy frowns at the cane, but I tap out the beat and her skepticism vanishes. After several rousing renditions of “Going to the Chapel” while promenading around the first floor, I broach the subject of marriage. “What do think, should we get married, have a little party?” I wink at my spouse. Teddy just stares at me, perhaps because I’ve never winked at her before.

She and Kennedy give each other a look. Our granddaughter explains, “You just got married.” She holds up her fingers. “Three times, Memere.”
I sit on the couch, disappointed; no cake, no Crockpot, and—one can only dream—no Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Kennedy puts her arms around me. “Memere, are you okay?”

“Yes, honey, Memere is fine.”

I’m fine, but planning. I love my spouse, but I’m a set-in-my-ways dyke. There are all kinds of gestures, ways of honoring a relationship. No State. No Church. A couple can order a lemon cake with coconut frosting, buy tulips for themselves and a wrist corsage for their grandchild without feeling coerced into marriage assimilation. A couple can waltz around the living room, unmarried, and be perfectly happy together for twenty, thirty, forty years, or more.