Here is what I wrote to say at her memorial.
I got so tongue tied I was not able to fully read the speech I wrote for her.
I was only able to go over the "highlights".
So I am posting it here for everyone to read.
MY EARTHGIRL
How do you put over 9 years of knowing seeing some one and five years of living with someone into a few words.
When Brenda got really sick people would ask us how long we been together, we could not come up with an answer.
At the time all I could remember is that we met at Queens Borough Hall at some form of "Center" Outer borough outreach program.
I was there as a rep. for the Queens chapter of PFLAG and she was there for the New York Area Bisexual Network (NYABN).
The last few weeks I set myself a quest on finding this date.
I did find that there was a "Center" outreach orientation at QBH in early 2004
(2/17/94), could this be the date.
I kind of remember that I ran in to Brenda at SW25 later that year.
I also found records that she and her friend Dorothy came to a
"National coming out day" in October of 1996 and signed the mailing
list
for the Queens chapter of PFLAG.
Another memory is that I met Brenda at the Queens march, and
while working around the festival doing "toy" shopping she saw a rubber
pink necklace that she liked and I brought it for her.
Later that day we stopped to get some Indian food on 74th street. We were playing
with the necklace while we waited for our food and I started to tie her hands together with the necklace.
With that she said "if you are
going to tie my hands together, you are going to have to take me home and (fuck) me".
So I did.
And I guess that was when our
"same-time-next-year" 2 or 3 time a year relationship got started.
This must have been in 1997 because I kind of remember meeting
later that month at GMSMA’s Folsom Street East (which started in 1997) and the Manhattan March and Festival.
This "same-time-next-year" relationship lasted for a few more years and we would see or talk to each other more and more.
Then can June and July of 2000 things got hotter.
We started to see each other more and more and Brenda started to stay over
longer and longer.
In late June or Early July I believe. This is when she came up with our nicknames of “Earthgirl” and “Spacealien”.
We did this on the way to the Bronx Zoo.
I was "an evil Spacealien who has come to earth to corrupt innocence earthgirl".
And she was the "innocence earthgirl".
This became part of most of our role playing.
When something was hard for her to do she would say that she was
only a "little (earth)girl" can it was to hard to do and needed a big
spacealien to help her.
Or when we where on the way home I would lean over to her and say
(now mind you the text would be difference from time to time but you
will get the idea from this example)
I would say into her ear "Guess what?" and she would say "what!" and I
would say that "I am an evil Spacealien who has come to earth to
corrupt innocence earthgirl"
and she would go "oh" and I would say "Can I take you home and
corrupt you" and she would get an evil smile on her face and shake it
yes and say "you better!".
By October she was mostly at my place and by January 2001 she moved in to stay.
The rest of the story goes pretty fast. We lived to get for the next 4 ½ years.
She took a likening right away to the computer and started to run a lot of online groups.
We went to a lot of face-to-face groups/meeting together, helping each other run the others meetings.
We also when to the "East Coast Loving More Polyamory Conference" in the July of 2002.
We had planned to go to the 2003 Conference even paid, but I broke my
leg a few weeks before and we did not go. And she spent the summer
taken care of me.
Skipping to late October 2004 we found that she had colon cancer
and it was in the late stages, spreading to the liver and lungs.
The rest you know.
We where together only 5 very short years but it's was the best five
years of my life. Her passing has left a hole that will never be
filled.
Thank you for hearing me out.
Her Partner
- Larry -
Remember that this is ©2005 Lawrence Nelson ® All rights reserved.