Our Way

“Over here! I found it! Oh, hurry, you have to see it for yourself.” Beth called to me from a couple of rows away. 

I hurried as much as my 74 year old body would allow me to and joined her. There it was. Our headstone. 

Beth Upton-Williamson 1945-

Margaret “Peg” Williamson-Upton 1946-

Partners in life 60 years and counting

“We did it our way.”

The 60th Anniversary party was supposed to be a surprise, so naturally all three of the kids had called to warn us, each one making us promise to act surprised so the other two wouldn’t feel bad. We told all three of them we’d act surprised, but we had one condition: nobody could bring gifts. We’d just moved into our new apartment and the downsizing process had nearly killed us, so we refused to accept any more boxes or items we’d have to unpack and find a home for in our new place. 

“Well, what are we supposed to tell people?” Mindy asked. “I mean, they’ll want to get you something. You know southerners are incapable of showing up to a party empty handed.” 

“Look, if you’re going to get us a gift you may as well buy us a headstone, because if I have to unpack one more box I’m going to keel right over.” My ability to filter my exasperation had never fully developed. Beth grabbed the phone. 

“She’s joking,” she said, giving me that warning look of hers. 

By the time Andrew called to warn us four days later, though, we’d had some time to think about it. We decided that if a gift was to be given, then it may as well be something we would actually use. And, preferably, something that we didn’t need to bring home with us. 

“You know, we’re not getting any younger, and it’s always been a battle for - well, for couples like us. It’d give us a lot of peace of mind to know that you kids don’t have to fight our battle for us after our time has come.” 

We’d known for a long time where we wanted to be buried. It was the same place where our love had blossomed. Back then graveyards were one of the only places we could really be ourselves. 

Beth and I had met in high school and right away there was something about her that allured me. It wasn’t just that she was pretty. There were a lot of pretty girls at school, each one just as off limits and unattainable as the next. I suppose, though, people like us have a way of finding each other eventually. It wasn’t too long before she was “dating” Bobby and I was “dating” Roger, and on date night the boys would pick us up and drive us to the Cedar Point Cemetery where Beth and I would walk together one direction and Bobby and Roger would walk together another. We’d walk and whisper and steal kisses and caresses under the moonlight as long as we dared, without having to worry about being seen by anyone’s eyes but each others’. When it was time for us to go, we’d head back to the cars and Bobby would drive Beth home and Roger would drive me home and we’d all go back to playing the parts expected of us. 

One night we got to the cemetery and there was another car there. Just the one. I had a bad feeling. Bobby pulled up next to us and we all got out of the cars, but we didn’t start walking. The four of us stood there, paired off in the couples we’d arrived as, anxiously looking around. 

“What should we do?” Roger asked. The fear in his voice was reflected in every set of eyes around that little circle. 

“Well, it’s a big place. And it’s dark,” Bobby pointed out. It wasn’t exactly an answer, though. 

I was terrified, and was about to say we should just leave when Beth grabbed my hand, and then grabbed Bobby’s. “We’re just four dumb kids out looking for some adventure and thrills in a cemetery at night, right?” 

“Right,” I said, although I didn’t feel as confident as she sounded. 

“Right,” Bobby said with more conviction. 

“Sure, okay,” Roger said, grabbing my free hand and gripping it tightly. I could tell that he was just as aware as I was that there were far more dangerous things out there for kids like us than shadowy gravestones.  

We started to walk, looking more literally like friends of Dorothy than any of us ever had as we tip-toed down the darkened brick pathway keeping a vigilant look-out for our own proverbial lions and tigers and bears. We tried to talk and joke as if this was a normal thing that normal kids did, and some of it was sincere. Even in the face of fear, it’s hard not to smile at least a little bit when you’re surrounded by people you love. But that knot in my stomach just wouldn’t go away.

As we came around a bend in the pathway a twig snapped and we heard leaves rustling ahead of us. Two shadowy figures, one of whom was carrying a flashlight, emerged from between a row of overgrown lilac bushes. The shadows stopped short when they saw us, their light frozen on the ground. We stopped short, too, our eyes frozen on the silhouettes in front of us. All six of us stood there silently staring into the darkness until Beth turned to Bobby and teased, “Crowded place tonight. Why didn’t you boys call ahead for a reservation?” 

The figures holding the flashlight in front of us let out an exhale and we heard a giggle as they turned and trotted away hand-in-hand. We stood there, our hearts pounding, until we heard the distant sound of an engine starting. As soon as we heard them drive away we ran back to the cars and went home. 

We spent the rest of that summer double dating as an inseparable foursome. We shared a good laugh when Bobby and Beth were nominated for Homecoming King and Queen. Even though the public double dating felt safer in the beginning, living that lie was a kind of torture that weighed on all four of us. We may have paired off to dance with partners that wouldn’t cause any alarm, but I often caught Beth’s eye across the dancefloor and could sense Roger looking for Bobby as we swayed in each others’ arms. Eventually people would start to notice, if they hadn’t already. As frightening as the close call at Cedar Point had been, it still felt safer than having to pretend in public, performing under what seemed like the ever more scrutinizing gaze of our classmates and neighbors. By the time we graduated the following spring we had shaken off the jitters of that midnight encounter and returned to our cemetery - our sanctuary. 

By the time Marsha P. Johnson picked up that brick at Stonewall in 1969, Beth and I were very much in love. Bobby and Roger had broken up when they went away to college, but she and I stayed strong. While we’d no longer had the security blanket of our old escorts, the Women’s Liberation Movement created a great excuse for two young women to be out without dates. Female friendship and companionship had become much more celebrated, and for better or for worse, most people just saw two independent bachelorettes when we were out together. Of course, we managed to keep our hands to ourselves until we were truly alone. It still wasn’t quite safe for us to be that liberated. Not yet. 

Our first big argument came about when Beth insisted we go to the Gay Liberation Day March in The City, just a few months after the riots. I, though, was quite happy to cheer from the sidelines at a safe distance from our home in New Jersey. Roger had moved to New York right after he graduated. He had been at the riots, and he’d phoned to tell me all about it. The bravery and camaraderie that was displayed was inspiring, but the arrests, the blood, the fire and carnage, and the description Roger gave of what it felt like to get hit by a policeman’s baton all paralyzed me with fear. Beth said that was why we had to go; so nobody else would have to feel the fear I was feeling. When she asked me if I thought our love was worth fighting for I knew she was right. We had to go. 

As we started marching and chanting I caught sight of a police car up ahead. I felt my heart in my throat and then I felt Beth’s fingers firmly interlacing themselves between my own. It was the first time we had ever held hands in public. She looked over at me with that look of fierce love and fierce determination that I’d always admired. I nodded, swallowed, and kept on chanting. She didn’t let go of my hand the rest of that march. 

After a decade of marching and chanting and having things thrown at us and being sprayed with fire hoses and even being arrested once, our love was stronger than ever. Far from breaking down our spirit, the antagonism of those trying to tear us apart actually made us closer. Not just me and Beth, but our whole community. We’d celebrated victories and triumphs along the way, and we’d made many fast friends. And then, just as we thought we saw a light at the end of the tunnel, we began to watch as those new friends died, one after another after another. 

As the AIDS epidemic grew more serious and the death rate began to climb, we began to fight for love in a whole new way. Roger called me in tears shortly after the first few headlines came out. “Peg, I don’t want to die with nothing left behind. I want a family. I want to have kids.” I knew what he was asking before he even asked. And I knew that I would do it. I just didn’t know how it would work. And I didn’t know what Beth’s reaction would be. 

The day Roger and I sat down with Beth to tell her we wanted to have a baby was the first time I imagined a future without her. It nearly broke me. It nearly broke us. 

I could see the pain in her eyes as she asked, “Isn’t what we have enough?” By the time Roger left that night all three of us were as scared as we’d ever been, but this was a different kind of scared. This flavor of scared didn’t originate from the Them that existed outside of Us, but from within our own ranks. 

“Do you love Roger? Are you in love with him?” The crack in Beth’s demanding voice betrayed just how afraid she was to hear the answer to this question. Of course, it was two very different questions. 

I was silent for a long moment. I chose my words carefully. 

“You know Roger’s like a brother to me. You’ve always known that! And you know I could never be in love with him. At least, certainly not the way I’m in love with you. But I do love him. Dearly.” I could see the hurt in her eyes, and it fueled the frustration inside of me. “God, Beth! He’s already part of our family, so why is it a bad thing if we actually have a family together? You, yourself, have said that you want to have kids, and this way we wouldn’t have to have a stranger involved. This is a good thing, Beth! For all of us.” Tears flowed freely down both of our faces. 

Beth said nothing. I couldn’t keep the tremble out of my voice as I continued. “Beth, please don’t make me choose between us and a family. Please. I choose our family.” She got up to leave. “We can have both,” I whispered, not as a statement, but as a prayer. 

We didn’t discuss it any further for nearly two weeks. The air in our home was thick and we could hardly be in the same room as one another without at least one of us bursting into tears of anguish. Grief is not just reserved for the physical death of those we love, but is always standing by for the death of any chapter of love. I knew I couldn’t go forward with a pregnancy without Beth being by my side, and now it seemed that the very idea of parenthood was the thing that would drive her away. 

After twelve very tense days and sleepless nights, though, she walked into the kitchen while I was making coffee and said, matter-of-factly, “I’m in.” 

It took me a moment to realize what I’d just heard. “Really?” I said, stunned. 

She smiled that smile that I knew I never wanted to live without. “Really. I love you and, in a very different way, I do love Roger, too. And I want us to have a family. Our family, our way. I don’t have any idea how this is going to work, though.” 

“Me neither,” I admitted. “But I know we’ll figure it out. All of us, together.” 

So we found a doctor from our community who helped us get pregnant. Roger moved in with us after Andrew was born and our family of four was truly something to behold. As the three of us stood over his crib looking down at the soft, fragile being before us Beth grabbed my hand and whispered, “You were right.” I often found myself wishing the people who hated us could see how much love was in that home. Two years later I gave birth to Mindy, but the complications of her birth made a third impossible. Beth now jokes that she was feeling left out of biological motherhood, so she carried our third child, Katherine, who was born a year after Mindy with her mother’s bright blue eyes, and her father’s dark brown curls. 

Roger got sick around the time that Katie was crawling. The fact that he lived long enough to hear her call him “Dada Roj” was a gift. He died shortly before her third birthday. We took him home to his parents and they laid him to rest in the Cedar Point Cemetery where our lives and loves had started. I refused to leave him there alone, so all five of us made the move back to the town that Beth and I swore we’d never return to. 

We make sure to visit Roger every holiday, birthday, and special occasion. When Beth and I were finally able to get married in 2015 the kids insisted that their father should be there, so we held the wedding in the cemetery. It was Andrew’s idea for the processional to end next to Roger’s headstone. I remember laughing at how appropriate it was for Roger to symbolically be giving me away to Beth in this graveyard one last time. 

“We really did do it our way,” Beth laughed through the tears as her finger traced our names carved in the cool, grey granite. By now the kids had caught up with us. 

“Yeah. We did,” I said as my voice caught. “We did it. All of us, together.” I smiled as I looked at my beautiful kids standing next to Beth, our son absentmindedly petting his father’s headstone and the laughter of our grandkids chasing each other in a game of tag in the distance. In a world that was often so wrong, right here and now, everything was alright.