To me, personally, Ken Wilson, this passage may be the most touching, important part of your story.

As an ally, you experienced directly what so many of us LGBTQ people face all the time.

We lose memories, family, and friends all the time. It’s a normal, expected part of just being us.

When my late husband passed away, I didn’t just lose him, I lost the co-op apartment that we shared for a decade in Manhattan.

So many memories were wrapped up in that space. So many things that it just didn’t make sense to keep.

Maybe worse was my acceptance of the eviction’s inevitable nature. Neither I nor my friends presumed to be angry. What could we do?

So I packed up as many of our possessions as made sense, and I left.

Because that’s what you do when you’re queer.

You hang around until you aren’t welcome anymore, and then you move on.

Just the way it is.

I’m very sorry you had to live that.