CHAPTER 11

Righteous anger.

The first thirty-six hours of our marriage were exactly like the preceding thirty-six: a lot of sleeping on Andy’s part and a lot of pushing him to eat on mine. He experienced two or three more fainting episodes like the one he’d had just before our ceremony. Each time, moving from his recliner to the wheelchair, his eyes would roll back into his head and his face would go white. Those of us around him would start yelling his name while frantically increasing his oxygen.

After each episode, in typical Andy fashion, he’d look up at me and say, “I’m sorry. Are you mad at me?,” ashamed that he couldn’t make the move and worried he was letting me down by not having the strength to do so.

“No, Beanie, I’m not mad at all. I love you very much,” I’d say, trying to reassure him.

The second full day of our marriage was a big day for Andy. He was scheduled to begin the chemotherapy that we all hoped would prolong his life. Somehow we managed to make it from our apartment to Hopkins in Baltimore without another fainting episode.

Before we left, Sean had pulled me aside and warned, “Don’t be surprised if they decide to admit Andy.”

When the oncologist entered the exam room, it was obvious he was shocked by Andy’s decline and the clear increase in oxygen through his nasal tubes. He didn’t yet know about Andy’s episodes, but blood work had already come back that showed troubling numbers. And despite my best attempts, Andy was significantly dehydrated.

“We may not be able to proceed with treatment today,” the doctor informed us.

Andy looked so defeated. With the wedding in the past, all he wanted was to live as long as possible. Seeing Andy’s response, the doctor continued: “But I’ll tell you what, how about we send you up to the infusion center for some liquid and we’ll see where you are. Maybe we can start with some lower doses of chemo.” The doctor would also order a new blood test and meet us in the infusion center when the results came back. There was still some hope.

Up in the infusion center, they switched Andy from oxygen through his nose to a larger, clear mask that covered both his mouth and his nose. The change meant an increase in oxygen, which satiated Andy’s need but further signaled his internal decline.

Waiting in a curtained-off area in the infusion center for the doctor to return, I heard some nurses discussing the need to admit a patient. I had a feeling who they were talking about, so I excused myself from Andy’s side and stepped up to the nurses’ counter.

“Um, do you all have an update on Andy?” I asked the three assembled women in scrubs, already knowing the answer.

He would have to be admitted, they informed me. This is it, I thought. This is the end.

“I’ll go tell him,” I offered, knowing the news would crush him. Both of us knew that, once admitted, the chance of treatment would evaporate.

The nurse followed me as I opened the curtain and went back to Andy’s side. I tried to break the news as gently as possible. He knew what the news meant, but he held out hope that perhaps they’d stabilize him again and then, down the road, he could start treatment. But just as Andy gave me a wink, trying to assure me not to worry, the oncologist from earlier returned with even worse news. The concerning numbers had already jumped even higher.

Even with the new mask, Andy’s thirst for oxygen continued to increase rapidly, each time requiring the nurse to turn the knob just a little higher, increasing the rush of air through his mouth and nose and into his lungs. As he had been for the last few days, Andy was drifting in and out of consciousness.

With Andy fading in and out, the oncologist asked to have a word with me outside of Andy’s curtained area. We stepped out into the hallway, and the doctor turned to me with a pained look on his face.

“Have you two talked about intubation?” he asked, referring to the process of a breathing tube being inserted. The urgency of the question was obvious in his tone.

He didn’t have to tell me what that meant for Andy. The fly-killing doctor two weeks before had made it crystal clear. If a breathing tube were to be introduced, Andy would never be able to be weaned off of it. If intubated, Andy would also need to be sedated to do it. And if sedated, Andy would likely never wake up again.

“Can I give him some time before we talk about it?” I requested. After all, he had just gotten the terrible news that he would be admitted.

“Unfortunately, no. You need to have the conversation as soon as possible.”

We were immediately given an “upgraded room”—as I tried to jokingly put it during the admittance process—and I sat down with Andy for what would be the first and only extended conversation of our marriage: whether or not he wanted his life continued in a persistent vegetative state.

I was scared to broach the subject. I knew I would be crushing his hopes once again. I told him that for “precautionary reasons” we needed to talk about intubation. My hands shook as I held an advance directive given to us by the nurse.

“Can. It. Wait?” he asked, still straining to speak, but not quite as breathless, given the increased oxygen.

“No, I’m sorry, Bean, it can’t.”

His eyes widened and he sat up a bit, surprised at the rebuff and the message that it carried with it. I began paraphrasing the advance directive, asking which option he preferred.

“Don’t patronize me,” he shot back, upset that I was trying to simplify and shorten the language. The increase in oxygen, coupled with the seriousness of the topic, had given him a little extra energy. “I’m still a lawyer. Give me the document.”

He stared at it for ten minutes, eventually picking up the pen I had put by his side and marking the box next to the option that read “If my doctors certify that I am in a persistent vegetative state…and there is no reasonable expectation that I will ever regain consciousness…keep me comfortable and allow natural death to occur.”

He knew it was over, that he was in the definite twilight of his life. He didn’t have to say anything; it was clear that in checking that box his last bit of hope disappeared.

I called our family and friends and told them to come to Baltimore. His father, his mother, his stepfather, and my mom came immediately. Bishop Gene and our friends, who had been by our side the previous few weeks now, made their way to the hospital.

On Sunday, they had sat in a semicircle around our white tent as Andy and I wed. But now, on Tuesday, that same group stood in a semicircle around his hospital bed, a collection of loved ones—transgender and cisgender; gay and straight; family, both blood and chosen—bound together by our love for Andy.

Some came up each day, but most stayed overnight. “Andy’s Fun-Time Cancer Sleep-Away Camp for Adults,” he had humorously called it earlier in his treatment. The hospital waiting room became the sleeping quarters for the fifteen who spent each night on the tile floor or on the waiting room’s hard chairs, including his parents.

I spent the night in Andy’s hospital room, sleeping in a chair next to his bed and holding his hand. My mom slept in a chair next to me, holding my other hand.

With each passing hour, Andy slept more and more. He’d occasionally wake up to squeeze our hands, give us a smile, or signal to us that he needed more oxygen. He’d raise his hand and rotate his fingers with a look of desperation in his eyes. Each time we’d have to tell him, “I’m sorry, it’s as high as it can go.”

That Wednesday—his second day in the hospital and three days since our wedding—was the last day Andy was awake. When his eyes opened in the late afternoon, I had a feeling it would be the final time I’d see his beautiful blue eyes and he would see mine. Somehow, without knowing how, I just knew. I leaned in and held his hand.

“I love you,” I said with the knowledge that it would likely be the last time he’d hear the words.

He looked up at me, raised his eyebrows, and managed to say four words. They would be the last words Andrew Cray would ever speak.

“I love you, too.”

His eyes closed and his head fell to the side as he drifted off. I knew instantly that he wouldn’t be waking up again and that those would be his last words.

I love you, too. He wanted to say it just one more time. Just like with the wedding, he had rallied to express that love. It was perfectly Andy. His final words would not be ones of anger or pain but of love and commitment.

With Andy asleep again, I asked to be alone with him. I had remained stoic throughout the hospital stay, taking command and conferring with doctors, attempting to shield myself from my own emotions. But I needed to let it out.

As the door closed, I sat back down by Andy’s side and exploded with tears, wailing as I buried my head into the side of the bed by his hand. I don’t know that I can do this without you, I thought, crying into the sheets. My relationship with Andy had been a constant since coming out. So much of my confidence and comfort came from him, from our relationship, and from his reassurances. It’s hard to live in this world as a trans person, and Andy had been my safe harbor, my safe space. We were supposed to spend the rest of our lives together.

I looked up from my crouched position toward Andy’s head, covered with the oxygen mask. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” I cried, as I crawled into bed with him. I lay there next to him, feeling his heartbeat, his chest rising and falling.

By the next morning, Thursday, August 28, it was clear that it was only a matter of time, and echoing a conversation I had with one of Andy’s best friends the evening before, a nurse told us that sometimes patients need permission to pass away.

That’s so Andy, we all thought.

One by one we all leaned in to give Andy permission to die.

I was the first and last person to convey that message to him. “I love you, Beanie. I’m going to miss you every day, but it’s okay for you to go. No one is going to be mad at you.”

I had to say it for him, but I also had to say it for myself. I had to remind myself that it was okay for him to go. That I was going to be fine. That he would be with me forever and ever.

As he grew weaker, the remaining energy and heat focused itself in the core of his body. I kissed the top of his head and slipped a handwritten note into his now-cold clinched fist. “You are loved,” it read.

Within minutes, his breathing became more labored, his breaths fewer and deeper. His oxygenation levels began to drop—95 to 85. I called for everyone to come into the room—85 to 75.

We gathered around Andy. His dad held one hand and I the other. I sat next to his mother, and his stepdad stood behind her. My mom and Helen, who’d remained at the hospital for the preceding two days, put their hands on my shoulder.

Everyone was holding on to one another or on to Andy. Everyone was connected, hoping that somehow we could transfer love from the outermost person in the circle to Andy. The collective energy was palpable—75 to 65.

His breathing slowed even further. We continued to hold on to one another and to him. The room was silent but for the slowing beep of the heart monitor and the occasional sounds of quiet sobbing. We stood there for a few more minutes, waiting for the inevitable. I put both my hands around his left hand, which bore our new wedding band.

And then, at three-thirty p.m. that afternoon, Andy passed away.

No one moved for a few moments. No one said anything. No one knew what to do. A few erroneous beeps of the heart monitor cruelly startled us. We almost expected him to come back to life.

The silence continued, interrupted again thirty seconds later. Beep.

Frustrated, I silently stood up, the rest of the room looking at him. I walked out and asked a nurse to turn off the monitor.

“Please, just turn that damn thing off.”

The room eventually cleared out and I was left alone with Andy again. I sat by his side like I had done right after his last words, this time holding his completely cold and stiff hands.

I stared at him, noticing that the color had evaporated from his face in the last few minutes. Tears began to run down my face. No more sobs like before. Just an exhausted silent release of emotions.

“I love you, too,” I whispered, as I kissed his hand.

Over the next few hours, it all felt so unreal. The sadness mixed with exhaustion and disbelief clouded the hours after his death. Later that night, we met at a hotel conference room in Baltimore to decide on next steps. We were all still in shock. Here we were, the same group that had planned the wedding, now meeting to plan the funeral.

We had to answer questions that none of us knew the answer to, like whether Andy wanted to be buried or cremated. We racked our brains for comments or observations that he may have made at some point on the subject, eventually deciding on cremation so that all of us could have part of Andy to honor and remember.

Bishop Gene was tasked with finding a funeral home that, despite the plans to cremate, would ensure that any treatment of Andy’s body would respect his gender identity. Frequently, after a trans person dies, we see their lives desecrated. One more indignity on top of the ultimate injustice. Trans people are often misgendered, misnamed, and sometimes even “de-transitioned” in their presentation by funeral homes, dressed up as their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity. One last cruel and tragic rebuke of the life they had fought to build for themselves.

“We can’t let Andy be disrespected,” I instructed Bishop Gene, who was clearly surprised and maddened to learn that this was something that trans people had to even think about. With some research and detective work, we managed to find a funeral home that assured us that they would honor Andy and his gender identity.

After two days of planning, on a humid August Saturday, six days after our wedding, three hundred friends, coworkers, family members, and even some strangers—people who never met Andy, but who benefited from his work—joined together for a funeral service just a few blocks from our apartment.

The funeral would be the first time in more than a month that I would not be rushing around, taking care of someone or something. My mind was finally clear of a to-do list—of responsibilities and others’ needs—and the thought of actually having to grapple with my own emotions frightened me. The funeral would be the beginning of my own grieving process.

Like the weekend before, Bishop Gene presided. He wore the same white, red, and gold vestments from the wedding ceremony, declaring that both gatherings were a celebration of life and love. We sang “Here I Am Lord,” a Presbyterian hymn that Andy and I both discovered a year before had been our favorite hymn growing up as active members of our local Presbyterian churches.

I asked three of Andy’s best friends to eulogize him. His friend Fitz spoke about the preservation of energy, that matter is neither created nor destroyed, and that Andy continued on within the universe for eternity. Kelsey talked about the unique and binding journey that had joined them as “brothers,” together struggling with their gender identity, coming out, and transitioning in college. Kellan, one of Andy’s best friends and his “partner in crime” in all things LGBTQ health–related, talked about the lifesaving legacy Andy left behind and his selflessness through it all.

In one of the most jarringly moving moments, Kellan invited the entire sanctuary to stand up and applaud the small picture of Andy in front of the stage. During his life, Andy had never gotten the recognition for his game-changing work, but as the crowd rose from their seats and proceeded to applaud and cheer for five minutes straight, I knew that Andy was watching, both cringing and appreciating it all at the same time.

Andy isn’t gone, I thought. He lives on in the change he brought to this world.

Andy’s humility was so great in life that it took his death for me to fully understand the breadth and depth of his contributions to the community. Tributes came flooding in from elected officials and city councils across the country praising Andy for his help in expanding health access for LGBTQ people in their communities. Legislation protecting LGBTQ youth from discrimination in federally funded homeless shelters was introduced in the U.S. Senate, with the prime sponsor crediting Andy for making the bill possible.

Transgender people from across the country sent me messages and stories of their interactions with Andy. One transgender woman from Colorado whom I met at a conference had been able to transition, much like me, because Andy had helped advocates in her home state secure protections from discrimination in health insurance. She began crying as she described Andy, someone she barely knew, as an almost godlike figure in her life.

During the first two weeks after the funeral, everything still felt “temporary.” I expected Andy to come through the door at any moment. But eventually the shock gave way to the grief that comes a few weeks in, when you fully realize the person is not just away on a trip. That they are gone and never coming back.

The smallest things would set me off. Random daily tasks would instantly trigger memories, particularly of the last month of pain and chaos. The flashbacks would leave me breathless and shaking. I never knew what would do it. It could be the purr of our cat Waffles, who still lived with me, or something as small as getting on the elevator in our apartment building.

He felt so present and so far away all at the same time. While our friends had cleaned out our closets of many of Andy’s clothes, Waffles slept every night on a pile that remained. I’d hear Andy’s voice calling from around the corner in our apartment for me to come because dinner was ready. I’d hear his breathing as I went to sleep.

I started texting daily with Andy’s mom. Through my relationship with Andy, and his battle with cancer, I had gained a family. As difficult as it was for me, my heart ached for what his parents had to go through. No parent should have to watch their child pass away. And I worried that I would be a reminder of what they had lost. But in the days after Andy’s passing, his parents made clear to me that I would forever be their daughter.

With time, they also made it clear that they’d understand if I moved on. When they talked about me remaining their daughter, they increasingly included the addition of any future partner. They didn’t want me to feel any pressure or worry that I’d have to choose between my new family and a new partner.

When my friends would ask me about dating again, I’d flippantly say, “I’m twenty-four, transgender, and a widow…that’s a lot for someone in this society to handle.” But the truth is that I really wasn’t interested. Even as time passed, new love was the one thing I wasn’t in a hurry to find.

I’ve never believed that there is only one person in this world for everyone; chance wouldn’t allow all of us to find that person in a world of five billion people with varying cultures, geography, and languages. But I did feel like I had experienced more love in my two years with Andy than most people do in several decades. My heart was totally full (and then some), and I genuinely felt blessed for it.

And Andy’s friends made sure I continued to feel the love that Andy had for me even after he was gone. Before his illness, I hadn’t been incredibly close with Andy’s friends, but through it all, we made lifelong bonds. They had personified amazing grace, demonstrating the goodness of their hearts in the ways they encircled Andy with support.

The months following his death continued to be a roller coaster of emotions as I made my way through the different stages of grief. Disbelief and, later, depression, followed by anger: a quiet but significant anger.

I’m not an angry person by nature. Petty anger, the kind we feel when we are slighted by a friend or feel underappreciated, seems like a waste of time and energy to me. But petty anger isn’t the only form that exists. There’s also righteous anger, the kind of anger that, when checked with hope and mixed with a cause, can help change the world.

I find it very hard to be angry unless blame is clear. But where was the blame here? I couldn’t be mad at Andy’s cancer because it was a collection of cells. I couldn’t be mad at the bad luck of terminal cancer because no one caused the cancer to happen.

No, I was mad at society. Andy had the courage to come out to a hateful world at a relatively young age. He was supposed to live three-quarters of his life as his authentic self. Instead, because cancer cut his life short, he had less than a quarter. Some people have even less time than that.

Even with a supportive, progressive family, hate had kept Andy inside himself for what turned out to be the majority of his life. None of us know how long we have, but we do have a choice in whether we love or hate. And every day that we rob people of the ability to live their lives to the fullest, we are undermining the most precious gift we are given as humans.

As I said to that state representative in Delaware who had admonished us for moving the trans equality bill too quickly, each time we ask anyone—whether they are transgender, Black, an immigrant, Muslim, Native American, gay, or a woman—to sit by and let an extended conversation take place about whether they deserve to be respected and affirmed in who they are, we are asking people to watch their one life pass by without dignity or fairness. That is too much to ask of anyone.

I was furious at society for taking that time and truth away from Andy. I was angry that people were dying after being denied the right to pursue happiness and wholeness in whatever life they lived.

And in that anger, a deeper fire was lit and a lesson was learned. Every day matters in this fight. Dr. King called it “the fierce urgency of now.” Hope can be limitless. Inspiration can always be found. Ideas are endless. But time, that is one resource none of us can afford to waste.

And so I jumped back into our work. My weeks were filled with my work at CAP, and increasingly, my weekends were filled with travel, speaking at events across the country with the Human Rights Campaign. I felt closer to Andy continuing the work that we were both so passionate about. And at the center of that work was the fight for nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in every corner of this country.

Before his death, Andy and I had convinced our colleagues at the Center for American Progress to embrace the idea of a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill, a nationwide law that would not just prohibit discrimination in employment like ENDA, but also in housing, public spaces, schools, health care, stores, shops, restaurants, and shelters.

The same conversations that Andy and I, and later our colleagues at CAP, were having about thinking bigger and bolder in our federal advocacy were simultaneously happening across town at HRC. And to our surprise, as we worked on our report at CAP, in mid-July, just two weeks before Andy was rediagnosed with cancer, HRC came out publicly in favor of a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill in an op-ed by the organization’s president, Chad Griffin.

“At the end of the day, full federal equality is the only acceptable option,” he wrote in the piece. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

I had gotten to know Chad through my travels with HRC. Before moving to D.C. to lead the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, he had helped lead the successful effort to overturn California’s Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Since Chad’s move to HRC in 2012, I had been impressed with his charisma and compassion. But what struck me above all else was his desire to stand up for the most marginalized in the LGBTQ community in his role as HRC’s president—one of the most prominent positions in the equality movement—and his clear desire for a bold agenda. His op-ed endorsing a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill demonstrated that, coinciding perfectly with the work that my colleagues and I were doing at CAP.

After Andy’s passing, I rededicated myself to the issue with a renewed passion and sense of urgency. With many of the same friends and colleagues who had helped us through the last month of Andy’s life, including Bishop Gene, we produced a ninety-four-page report called “We the People: Why Congress and U.S. States Must Pass Comprehensive LGBT Nondiscrimination Protections.”

“Throughout the 230-year history of the United States, the nation has slowly but steadily expanded access to every vital facet of daily life—from housing to employment to the public marketplace—for communities of Americans who were once excluded,” it opened. “Through exhaustive efforts, each generation has broadened the nation’s perception of ‘we the people.’ But despite this progress, too many Americans are still left behind, excluded from the country’s most basic legal protections.”

The report recounted many of the sobering statistics and stories I had become all too familiar with during our fight for gender identity protections in Delaware and in the year and a half since. One in four transgender people reported being fired from their job simply because of their gender identity. A quarter of same-sex couples experienced housing discrimination in one survey. More than half of LGBTQ students reported feeling unsafe in schools because of their sexual orientation, and roughly one-third feel unsafe because of their gender according to the student advocacy group GLSEN.

We released the report in December 2014, four months after Andy’s death, at a public event at CAP. The moment marked a clear shift in the broader national progressive movement’s approach to LGBTQ equality. No longer would we shrink into incrementalism. No longer would we ask for a quarter of a loaf while our community needed a full loaf. As HRC’s Chad Griffin had written several months before, we needed full federal equality.

Being the report’s lead author, I joined Chad Griffin, out gay member of Congress Mark Takano, and civil rights leader and Maryland pastor Delman Coates on a panel discussing the report and the need for a new federal LGBTQ civil rights act. The conversation was moderated by Maya Harris, who would later serve as the head of policy for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

But the highlight of the event was the announcement made by Senator Jeff Merkley, the progressive champion who had taken over as the prime sponsor of ENDA, that in the next Congress he would introduce a comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights bill. It was a historic declaration that forever changed the priorities and approach of the LGBTQ movement, and he did so while standing at a lectern and holding up our report, a document dedicated to Andy’s memory.

It was a bittersweet moment. Andy would have cherished it. And as the LGBTQ community continued to make significant steps and historic progress over the next two years, each time I couldn’t help but think, I wish Andy were here for this. Andy would have marveled at the pace of the change that was happening, a rate of progress that, while never fast enough, soon began to feel like an avalanche of advancements.

More and more states were adopting the policies in health care that Andy had championed in his life. Trans visibility, with role models like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, increased beyond even the “transgender tipping point” of 2013. A brilliant and hilarious transgender woman, Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, made national headlines when she was appointed the first openly transgender White House staffer. Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out, as much as I disagree with her political beliefs, initiated conversations around trans identities in living rooms and around dinner tables across the country. And through it all, the percentage of Americans saying they personally know someone who is transgender rose from single digits to roughly a third.

The LGBTQ community writ large experienced almost unimaginable progress. Support for marriage equality continued to rise and initiated a domino effect within the courts. Almost weekly, marriage bans were falling in states across the country.

Eventually, on June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court issued their historic decision legalizing marriage equality throughout the country. The specifics of the case hit home for me. The Ohio plaintiff in the case, Jim Obergefell, had lost his husband, John, to ALS, the fatal disease that slowly eats away at the individual’s motor skills. Because Ohio still banned same-sex marriage, Jim and John, whose health was deteriorating, flew to Maryland, where same-sex marriage was legal, and married on the tarmac onboard a medically equipped plane.

When John passed away a short time later, Jim learned that, despite being legally married in Maryland, the Ohio government would keep his name off John’s death certificate, leaving the category of “surviving spouse” blank. Another indignity imposed on LGBTQ people that extended beyond life and into death.

But in a vote of five to four, the nation’s highest court ruled against this injustice in favor of nationwide marriage equality.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.

The atmosphere outside of the Supreme Court and around D.C. was euphoric following the decision. Soon, news spread that in the ultimate celebration of pride in this historic moment, President Obama would light up the White House in rainbow colors. And as the sun set, I joined friends in Lafayette Park, the square just in front of the White House, to watch the colors of the rainbow envelop the front of the home of Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, and now Barack Obama.

Standing amid a sea of same-sex couples celebrating and LGBTQ people waving rainbow flags, my mind went back to the previous August on our rooftop. I put my hand on my wedding ring, which I continued to wear after Andy’s passing. I lifted my hand up to my mouth and kissed my ring. I wish Andy were here for this, I thought again.

“I love you, Bean,” I whispered.

While Andy and I were not a same-sex couple and, therefore, were always eligible to marry, our relationship underscored for me the importance of marriage equality. The roughly 1,500 rights and benefits associated with marriage go far beyond taxes and include things such as leave and medical decision-making. For lower-income and working-class same-sex couples, without the legal recognition of marriage, the type of illness Andy faced could easily result in having to choose between being fired from your job and serving as a caregiver.

And while my relationship with Andy and our circumstances demonstrated the practical reasons for access to marriage, it also reinforced the broader importance summed up in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion of the Court. Even facing death, Andy wanted our relationship affirmed and celebrated by our community and society. He likely should have passed away days before our wedding, but he held on for that simple but common desire to have our love recognized.

I felt grateful to have experienced the kind of love we were celebrating that night and in awe of the significant step forward we had just made as a country. And as darkness fell in Lafayette Square, the colors projected on the north side of the White House grew in their intensity. It was a moving sight. If the Court’s decision earlier in the day had been a tangible embrace of equality by our government, that evening’s display reflected a symbolic one.

Somewhere in Kansas, or South Carolina, or Utah, a young LGBTQ kid opened up their computer that night. They may have just heard anti-LGBTQ slurs around the dinner table. They may have just been called names in their neighborhood. But on that Friday night in June 2015, they went to sleep after seeing the White House—the ultimate symbol of our democracy—light up like a rainbow.

The ground was shifting beneath our feet; you could almost feel it.