A name by any other rose is still a name. . . .

By the time we went public at all (in a situation where I needed introducing), we'd been working on the relationship for nine months. The first time was I was introduced as a friend. The next time was only explaining to friends who knew us both that we were "together." And that sufficed. After a few months, however, the "friend" thing began to get a little old for me. And yet, it was his burden, not mine ~~ we were in NYC, not WV. I didn't have to introduce him.

On my own, I went down the possible list: friend, lover, mate, significant other, POSSLQ (person of opposite sex sharing living quarters): none felt very natural. In January, in the surgery waiting room, his doctor (who'd last seen me in the pre-surgical prep room) called me Mrs. Owens, and I thought that was no time to correct him. At the opening night party for The Right Kind of People, he introduced me thusly: This is Julie, my (gulp) partner. I chuckled. A little.

We talked about the possibility of marriage, and he felt strongly that he wasn't "good" at marriage, and did NOT want us to end the way his marriages had. I accepted that (deciding that marriage was a custom I'd ascribed to, but was not necessarily necessary. . . .). So it wasn't ever going to be "my wife" ~~ Nevertheless, it continued to nag a little. . . .

I toyed with "my old lady" and "my old man" -- but at our ages, lol!, that didn't exactly mean what it meant in the sixties and seventies. . . . One night I'd told him I thought I was his biggest fan. He'd said: "You are my biggest fan, my best friend, my partner, my lover, you are my everything." Who was I to be unhappy I had no "official" title?

After the horror show we went through with HIPAA at the hospital in Fort Worth, I didn't care about the name. I was just glad to be able to call and find out what kind of night he'd had, and to be able to sit and hold his hand.

A couple of days ago, I talked to the company manager from On Golden Pond who went with him to emergency. He'd had an initial dose of morphine for the pain, and was in the process of being admitted. She said she was listening intently to the description of what each form did/meant. Nothing about who can be told, who can be here. Later that night with the doctor, before surgery, she was wanting to know if she as well as I could be told until I arrived (since there was no one else locally), and Edwin who was awake and alert if a little drugged said: "My lady lives in my apartment."

That one had not, ever, occurred to me.

Bless him.