Your business contact's response is precisely what I feared in the story I shared in the writing prompt about this topic. I lied and told him my wife had died... because he was such an important client at the time. Our stories would have taken place at about the same time, give or take a couple years, and attitudes then were ... difficult in general, weren't they?

There was no general presumption, except in extremely left-ish circles, that same-sex relationships were real and genuine enough to compare to straight relationships.

In 1999, the only family member of mine who came to Lenny's memorial service was my dad. His support was fantastic, and I'm so grateful for that, but I have to say that in my Irish Catholic family, funerals and memorial services tend to be packed. They can be as much family reunion as a time for remembering the departed.

But I don't think it occurred to my extended family that Lenny's memorial was a "real" funeral for somebody who had married into the family.

I did get some nice cards and calls from a couple younger cousins, which I truly appreciated, but we still had a long way to go in society before the funeral of a same sex-partner could be seen as a true family affair.

In some ways we still have a long way to go.

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences!