Patricia Cornwell Speaks Of Her Wife: "Finally, I Feel Rooted Somewhere"

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell sat with the UK's Telegraph for a lengthy interview. Generally private, the best-selling author opened up about her 2005 wedding to Dr. Staci Gruber:

"Like Scarpetta [Cornwell's protagonist], I finally feel rooted somewhere. I feel a sense of responsibility and stability that I didn't have before. I hadn't been in a long-term relationship since I got divorced in 1988 and it's hard to live that way. Being with someone who is smart and gives good advice adds tremendously wonderful elements to your life.

"What happened was that I went to Harvard to research neuroscience and was directed to meet with Dr Gruber because she's so eminently respected. It was one of those things: you meet someone when you're not looking. I've never been a soapbox person for gay rights, but now I'm in a same-sex marriage I tend to be more open, because I am outraged that it should be illegal in other states."

"If we were outside of Massachusetts and Staci were in a horrible car wreck, a hospital could forbid me from seeing her. The federal government does not honour same-sex marriage, so couples can't file joint tax returns and, in terms of death benefits, people have to go to extraordinary lengths with lawyers to try to make sure that their partner isn't evicted from the home."

Read the whole interview

Comments

[Aslanspal]

I like Ms. Cornwell(Cornwall?) I think she will be a good advocate and voice.

[cinemaven]

Lovely news but it's so sad that a partner can still be excluded from a loved ones bed side.

Two years ago, I attended a wedding between a couple who had lived together for over 35 years. They started living together when they began teaching at 19 and many of their friends had no idea they were gay. They had to out themselves when one needed to be placed in a longterm care facility and the other could not live there with her unless they married or had some formalized union.

They broke the news (fearfully) and were stunned when the wedding was taken out of their hands and planned by friends in the church they had attended together for 25 years. It was a beautiful day and afterward they got a married couple apt. in the nursing home. They were surprised by the amount of support and approval they received from all of their very conservative friends. (they knew they had the support of the liberal among us *lol*)

Theirs was a happy ending but at the wedding, I met a woman who had lost her partner of over 20 years to alzheimers and MS. When the partner began to deteriorate, her estranged family got power of attorney, put the woman in a nursing home (her partner wanted her to stay at home and had arranged fulltime care) and began selling off her things and demanding 1/2 the value of the home. Unfortunately, it took a very long time for the partner to pass away. Had she died without illness, everything was willed to her partner but because of the illness and the fact that they had never formalized the relationship, the family was able to burn through everything she owned long before she died. They didn't allow her partner to visit without over 6 months of legal wrangling.

It's shameful that can happen in this day and age but I think that LorettaSingbiel is correct... "'The love that dare not speak its name' MUST be privately, publically, politically PROTECTED, and SHOULD be PROUDLY proclaimed!"

[CammyV]

It is unconscionable that a spouse in a committed gay relationship could be banned from a hospital room. We are no longer in the dark ages. However, even heterosexual unmarried couples can be treated the same way. There must be a document that one can carry in his/her wallet giving permission for the spouse to be involved in one's care, in an emergency.