He answered the door with a wave, holding a cup of coffee.

“Come on in,” he called, holding open the door.

I stepped into the cool house, relieved to be out of the blasting heat.  ”My buyer will be here in a minute.  He’s running late.”

“Oh, that’s fine.  There’s no hurry.  We’ll be outside in the yard so you all can take your time.”

I’d shown the house to my clients yesterday and Nate wanted his mom and dad to look at it with him to help make a decision.  His fiancee had to work so she wouldn’t be there.  Typically, the sellers leave the house during a showing, but the listing agent had told me that in this case, they just couldn’t.

“Between the cancer and the Alzheimer’s….I hope you understand, it’s just easier if they stay at the house.  They’ll be out of your way.”

Gary, the seller, seemed tired from the heat and the caregiving.  He visited with me while I waited for Nate.  I told him how much I loved their landscaping and he filled me in on how they’d designed the flower beds and spent months at the garden center, choosing the right perennials.  Their back yard was obviously a labor of love, and inside, the house showed obvious care and affection.

Nate got there, and Gary went outside. From the window, I could see them sitting shoulder to shoulder on the white bench under the maple tree, Gary doing the talking, both of them smiling at their little dog, who was running laps around the yard.

Nate’s parents pulled up and we started the tour of the house.  In the back yard, Gary gave us a walking tour of the flowers and all the work they’d done.  He confided to Nate’s mom that they hated to move, but there was a very good cancer doctor in a city about three hours away.  ”It’s where my grandchildren live, too, so I think it will be a good move for us.  I want to be close to family for later, when I’m…alone.”

Gary looked over to the love of his life, and saw their little dog was dancing around with his ball.  ”We hate to leave, but would love for some nice couple to move in and take care of these flowers.”

We were there for 45 minutes and then moved on to the other house on our list.  Nate’s parents kept talking about the nice couple with the wonderful yard, and how sad to have cancer AND Alzheimer’s and have to leave a place they loved so much.

I thought about how sad it was that Gary would be alone after the cancer and Alzheimer’s took their inevitable course.  And how scary it would be to try to navigate the medical and legal system to be able to make decisions for Charlie when their relationship had little to no legal standing.

Yes, Charlie.  The house was owned by a couple in their sixties, who had worked hard to make a home together, planted flowers and made friends with all their neighbors and baked cookies for the prospective buyers looking at their house.

A couple who sat on a bench under a maple tree, shoulder to shoulder.  Two men who shared their lives with one another, who were growing old and feeble, who shopped for groceries together and paid their bills and took the dog to the vet.

And now Charlie has terminal cancer and dementia, and that doesn’t fit in the stereotype most people have of same sex couples.

People hear the phrase “gay marriage” and think of something from a news story about a gay pride parade or some flamboyant party where randy men in hot pants and hard hats slap one another on the ass and try to ram their tongues down innocent boys’ throats.

But just as most regular people don’t fit the media stereotype of the Brady Bunch or The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, it’s true that most committed gay couples don’t fit the stereotypes we see on TV and in movies.

This is a couple who are just plain folks, who love each other through thick and thin, have grown old and dull together, and who now face the fearsome prospect of a terrible illness.

You think about the person you share your life with – your husband or wife, or significant other.  You think about how you would feel if you were sick, terribly sick, and what it would be like if someone said “What you have together isn’t real or valid, so we aren’t letting them sign off on any of your paperwork or make any decisions for you….or put you on their health insurance, or make your funeral arrangements or decide whether or not to donate your organs.”

Think about what it takes to make a marriage, and don’t give me the crap about the history of the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.  Not when women used to be sold as chattel to men they didn’t know, simply because their parents struck a bargain. Not when men beat their wives and people divorce at the drop of a hat and celebrities stay married for ten minutes and then throw away spouses like used kleenex.

If that’s sacred, then no…what Gary and Charlie have doesn’t fit the mold.  But if by sacred you mean forsaking all others and staying with someone through thick and thin and good health and bad and all the other things we promised in front of witnesses when we got married?  These men have something I can only call sacred.

Their relationship is more than just about sexual orientation.  Is your house only a bedroom?  No?

 Well, neither is theirs.